Going It Alone
by Clowns or Midgets
Summary: After three months of searching for a demon to deal with, Sam finds one that says yes. Dean is saved. This is the story of Dean fighting to define a life without his brother.
1. Chapter 1

**Though this story is predominantly Dean's, the first two chapters are Sam's story as we say goodbye. **

**I know in canon Ruby said no demon had the power to release Dean from Hell, but I am ignoring that in favor of telling the story that has been teasing me since I first watched 4.09 — I Know What You Did Last Summer. **

**This story does not have a beta reader so any mistakes are my own. **

* * *

**Chapter One**

The sky was an inky black dotted with stars. It used to be the kind of night Sam loved, one of those nights in which they would park the Impala in the middle of nowhere and sit on the hood, watching the stars. Those nights had come and gone though, there was no one to share the stars with anymore.

The crunch of gravel and his deep breaths were the only sound that broke the night. The animals you would expect in this part of Nebraska were absent. Perhaps they knew what lurked on this deserted road and they knew well enough to stay away. This was a place of darkness, even when the midday sun was beating down. Evil things lurked here.

He came to the right place in the road and he squatted. It was a little used path and the asphalt was covered with a deep layer of gravel, so he was able to make his offering easily enough. He laid the small tin in the hole he had uncovered and stamped the gravel down over it. Heaving out a great sigh, he closed his eyes and waited.

The first sign that he wasn't alone was a low throaty laugh. His eyes opened and he was staring into the face of a young woman with long, flowing black hair. Her russet skin made him think of Native Americans. She was beautiful, with her high cheekbones and almond eyes. Her full lips curved into a smile as she stared at him.

"Well, well, I wondered when it would be my turn."

He crossed his arms over his chest and stared her down. "Can you give me what I want?"

She walked forwards, walking in a circle around him. He could feel her eyes on his back, but he didn't turn to face her. She was trying to unnerve him, but he was beyond such tawdry manipulation. As she came to stand in front of him again, he thought he saw a glimmer of respect in her eyes for her failure to show his disquiet at her stalking him like an animal.

"I _could _give you what you want," she said in a conversational tone.

For the first time in three months, he felt something akin to hope. All the demons he had spoken to up till then had refused him outright. His jaw tightened as he fought to hide every emotion. Knowledge was power and he didn't want her knowing what he was feeling so she could use it against him. That was the mistake he had made before. His desperation had been obvious in his shaking hands and slurred speech, the result of too much alcohol. He was smarter now; he had learned from his mistakes.

"Will you?"

She considered him for a moment. "Maybe."

At least it wasn't an outright no, he thought.

"You'll have to break it down for me. What _exactly _do you want?"

"I want to take his place," he said.

She tapped her chin with one well-manicured, blood red fingernail. "Keep talking."

"I don't want ten years. I don't want one year. I want to trade places with him."

She smirked. "A straight swap. Intriguing. I can't deny I have been waiting for you to come to me. We had orders, you see. No one was to deal with a Winchester again."

He noted the use of the past tense. "You _had_ orders. What about now?"

She raised her hands to shoulder height. "They still stand for the others."

"But you?"

"Me… What I want isn't covered by orders. I have been waiting for you a long time. Three long months in fact. It took you long enough to find me."

His features twisted into a grim mockery of a smile. "What can I say, I've been busy."

She smiled knowingly. "So have we."

He didn't much care about that. He had a feeling he was close to reaching his heart's desire and any intrigue she was trying to cultivate would only divert him from his true purpose. "Will you give me what I want?"

She was silent for so long that he was sure she wasn't going to answer. He had almost decided to cut his losses here and move onto the next crossroads when she spoke up. "I will do one better. I will give you something you haven't asked for. Time. You can have a day to put your affairs in order before we come for you."

"I don't want time," he said brutally. Time was a bad idea. Time would give his brother a chance to find him. As much as he wanted to see Dean again, he didn't want him to have to see him dragged to Hell. He wanted no one to witness that.

"Too bad," she said. "Because you are going to get it. Call it my reward. I _want_ him to find you. I want him to see you dragged to Hell."

"Why would you care?" he asked.

"Because I owe him."

"What did he do to you?"

Her lips curled back in a snarl better suited to a dog. "He killed my father."

He understood now why she was making the deal against orders. It was revenge for them both. He didn't care though. The ends justified the means. He would get what he wanted, his brother's freedom.

"Do we have a deal?" she asked.

In response, he stepped forward and gripped the back of her head. He pulled her towards him and slammed their lips together. She moaned into his mouth, and his stomach rebelled the contact. His nostrils were filled with the smell of sulfur and he had to fight against his instincts to not pull away.

Eventually, she pulled back from him panting. "I can see the attraction," she said breathlessly.

He wiped his hand across his mouth, disgusted at what had just happened yet jubilant at his success. "Are we done?"

"Yes, Sam Winchester, we're done."


	2. Chapter 2

**Thank you hugs and kissed to everyone that read, reviewed, fave'd and alerted the first chapter. I am so grateful that you are willing to give this story a go. **

**This story does not have a beta reader so any mistakes are my own.**

**This is the last part of the story dedicated solely to Sam. We will be hearing from Dean in the next chapter. I thought it was important to give Sam his dues before we follow Dean though. **

* * *

**Chapter Two**

The rain started as he reached the place he'd parked the Impala. It drizzled down, soaking through the collar of his jacket and running down his back. He rubbed a hand over his face, swiping away the streaks of water that looked like tears. He wasn't crying though. He _had_ cried. At first, he had cried so much that he thought he would never be able to stop. Eventually, his traitorous eyes had come to understand that there was nothing to be gained from crying. It was just a show of weakness that _they_ reveled in. His dealings with the demons were over now, though. He had made the deal he had been working for since the minute he stamped the last clod of earth over his brother's grave, so he could cry, but he had no desire to. There were things to be sad about, the people he was leaving behind, the fact he would never get a chance to see his brother again, but the feeling of triumph overwhelmed any sadness. He had done it.

He unlocked the car door and climbed in behind the wheel. Even now, after months of driving across the states, searching for the right crossroads, it felt wrong to be behind the wheel. That was Dean's place. Sam's place was shotgun, where he could handle the maps as they explored the open roads of America. It wasn't for much longer now, though. Soon, Dean would be back to claim his place behind the wheel, and Sam would be… gone. He would be a duffel of belongings in the trunk and a necklace worn around the throat.

His hand came up to clasp the amulet. The metal was cool against his palm. It was the only physical evidence of his brother that he had left, and it was not his. Soon, like the Impala, it would be returned to its rightful owner.

The engine rumbled as he turned the key in the ignition, vibrating the seat slightly. It was the lullaby of his childhood. Countless nights he had fallen asleep stretched out on the back seat as a child, with the rumble and the sounds of Led Zeppelin or another of his father's cassettes lulling him to sleep. He had once thought of the car as his home, but that was before. After his brother was taken, he realized home wasn't a car or even a house, it was a person. It was Dean. As long as he had his brother beside him, he didn't need anything else.

His eyes slid to his watch and he saw that it was a little past midnight. He had exactly twenty-four hours left to him, and despite the fact he hadn't wanted those hours, he would now make use of them. There were things to prepare.

The windscreen was blurred by the misting rain, so he turned on the wipers and pulled out onto the road. There was hardly any traffic, and he made it back to Lincoln around two-am. He expected to see the building in darkness, but there was a light burning through the window.

The bar was small, smaller than the Roadhouse had been, but it was the best Ellen and Jo could do with the paltry insurance payout they'd received. It was strange, how even though they hadn't advertised that they were back in business, hoping for a more reliable and affluent clientele, that the hunting community had adopted Bill's Place as its new meeting point. Night after night, the bar was full of men and women, sharing lore on whatever new fugly they'd come across and cleaning weapons. For all her complaints, Sam knew Ellen was happy about it. Her life was a hunter's life and though she wasn't active—her daughter Jo had taken up the mantle of hunter for the Harvelle family—she was a part of it still.

He pulled the car to a stop around back and draped himself over the steering wheel for a moment, marshalling himself before he had to deal with whoever was still awake inside.

He thought back to the first time he'd stumbled upon the place. He'd heard rumor that Ellen had set up shop again but he hadn't known where until he'd stumbled through the saloon doors in hopes of a drink that would anesthetize the dreams for another night. Instead of the drink he had been hoping for, he had been greeted by a relived Ellen who'd thrown her arms around him and half led him half carried him to the backroom. There he had broken down, telling her of what had happened to Dean and how he was fighting to find a way to bring him back. She had consoled and comforted as best she could and when his tears had ceased she'd tucked him up in a warm, comfortable bed, and stayed with him as he'd slept.

That had been a watershed moment in his life. He had been standing at a crossroads, poised between two choices. One path had been to continue as he was, slowly poisoning himself with liquor and spending his nights hunting down crossroads so he could attempt to make deals. The other had been to summon Ruby and finally give her free rein to do as she wished with him. Ruby had come to him, shortly after Dean's death, with a new meat suit, big talk of revenge, and a way to kill Lilith. It had been a tempting prospect had it not been for the fuel for the revenge. She told him he needed something to fuel his powers and she'd brought him a silver flask. The moment the contents had touched his tongue, he knew what it was and he'd spat it back in her face. She had been trying to dose him with blood, her own blood it transpired. It made sense in a sick kind of way, Azazel's blood had given him the powers, more blood could only strengthen him, but he couldn't do it to himself. Instead, he had sent her away, ignoring her portents of doom, and threw himself into his mission to change places with his brother.

It wasn't until he woke, to see Ellen sitting beside him in a chair, that he'd realized there was a third choice. He could stop shaming his brother by wasting the life he had given his own to return and get on with it. Ellen put him to work in the bar, clearing up after the night before and restocking the shelves. His days were filled with manual labor, and his nights were filled with trying to find the right demon to deal with him. Ellen and Jo didn't know what he did at night; at least they pretended they didn't know. They accepted his excuse that he couldn't stand to be in the bar when it was filled with other hunters, so he took the evenings to drive.

There was a tap on the window, and Sam jerked up from the steering wheel. He opened the door, and Jo's smiling face peered in. "You gonna spend all night out here?"

He forced a smile and climbed out of the car. "Sorry, Jo, I guess I was lost in thought."

"Must have been pretty heavy thoughts," she said. "I heard you pull up five minutes ago."

He trailed after her as she walked back through the doors. She went behind the bar and fetched two bottles of beer. Sam hadn't drunk anything more potent that coffee since he came by Bill's but he figured he had a free pass now. He sat down at a table in the corner and Jo sat opposite him, straddling her chair and resting her chin on the back.

"How've you been, Sam?" she asked gently.

Sam shrugged. It was difficult for him to not tell her everything that had happened. He was brimming over with macabre happiness after his success at the crossroads, but the last thing he wanted was for Jo or Ellen to know what he'd done. "Fine."

She eyed him carefully. "You're different?"

Sam blinked innocently. "I am?"

"Yeah. There's something going on."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

She stared deep into his eyes, searching for something, some clue as to what had changed him.

"Tell me about your hunt," Sam said, trying to draw her attention away from him.

For all her good points, Jo was essentially a young girl. She hadn't been forced by fate and circumstance to grow up much too soon like Sam had. She was untainted by the hunting life. She still saw all the good of it, the people saved and the adrenaline rush, so she was happy to talk about her latest conquest. "It was a water spirit," she said excitedly. "Up in Maine, at a summer camp. It took two out before I picked up the lead."

"You stopped it?" Sam asked, knowing what her reaction would be.

"Of course I stopped it. What kind of hunter do you take me for, Winchester?"

Sam smiled, and for the first time in months, he didn't have to force it completely. He was enthused about Jo's hunt. She was developing a name for herself in her own right, and it was good to know that there was new blood coming into the game. Sam may be leaving, but Jo could take his place. She would save the lives he couldn't.

"So, what was the story?" he asked. "Where'd it come from?"

She took a swig of her beer and shook her head. "It was a drowned kid from back in the fifties when the camp started out. Took a lot of wrangling with the camp owners—they didn't want the publicity—but eventually I heard where the kid was planted. A little salt and lighter fluid did the job."

"You did good," Sam said fondly.

She beamed at him. "I'm glad you approve. Now, I've got to hit the hay. Mom's got me working in the morning. I need gas money. There's a possible werewolf in Maryland and it's full moon in a couple of weeks."

Sam nodded and drained his bottle of beer. "Yeah, me too. Things to do tomorrow."

He left the empty bottles on the table, knowing he would be back in a few hours to clean up, and flicked off the lights. They made their way through the back door that led into the dwelling side of the building in shadowy darkness.

"Sam," Jo said as she opened the door to her small bedroom, "I'll figure it out, you know."

Sam frowned at her. "Figure what out?"

"What's different."

Sam tried for an innocently bewildered expression. "I don't know what you're talking about, Jo. Get some sleep. Your mom will be banging on our doors early in the morning."

She nodded and Sam continued down the hall to his bedroom.

Sleep was ready to embrace him as he threw himself down on the bed, and his last cognizant thought as his eyes slid closed was that he hoped she didn't work it out. She didn't need to know what was coming.

* * *

Sam was woken by a stinging pain on his cheek and a voice bellowing in his ear. "Up, Winchester!"

He jerked to a sitting position and caught Ellen's arm automatically as she made to slap him again. "What the hell," he said drowsily.

"I'll give you what the hell," she snarled. "Up, dammit. I'm not having this conversation with you in your shorts." She turned on her heel and marched out of the room.

Sam untangled himself from the sheets and got to his feet. The cool air of morning pebbled his skin and he grabbed a sweatshirt and pulled it on, followed by jeans and his heavy boots. He had a sinking sensation in his gut that Jo, and therefore Ellen, and worked out what he had done. He was half-tempted to make a run for it out of the back door, but he owed them better than that. They'd done a lot for him, saved his life in a way, and the least he could do was face them now.

He plodded into the small kitchen and saw Ellen leaning up against the counter and Jo sitting at the table. Their eyes followed him as he came in. He knew, without a word being spoken, that they knew. It was something in the way they were looking at him, as if he was already dead. He knew the expression as he had worn it for a year when looking at Dean. It was the expression of pain of knowing someone you loved was on borrowed time and there was nothing you could do about it.

He smiled ruefully. "What gave me away?"

Ellen drew a deep breath, held it for a beat, and then exhaled slowly. When she spoke, it was in a tone of forced calm. "Jo here told me you were different last night. And now I see it for myself. You might be a good actor, Sam, but your eyes give you away. You're happy, and only one thing can have done that. As Dean isn't here sitting at the table with us, I'm guessing he's on his way. You made a damn deal, didn't you?"

"We've been watching you, Sam," Jo said. "For weeks now. You think we didn't notice you poring over the maps, searching for crossroads."

Sam looked down at the floor. "Why didn't you say anything?"

Ellen crossed her arms over her chest. "Because we thought it was okay. We figured if you couldn't find a demon to deal with you after spending night after night on the road trying, you never would. And now… Dammit Sam!"

Sam was mortified to see that there were tears in Ellen's eyes when he looked up. He rallied for something to say, but what could he possibly say? He had made a deal, she knew it, so there was no point lying about it. "I'm sorry," he said quietly.

Ellen sniffled loudly and wiped at her eyes. "Well, first things first. How long did you get?"

"Longer than I deserved."

She tapped her foot impatiently. "Tell me, Sam!"

"A day," Sam said softly. "I have till midnight."

"Dammit." She seemed to steel herself. "Jo, get on the phone. Call every hunter in my book. I want them all here, now."

Jo stood and reached for the phone, but Sam caught her arm. "What are you doing?"

"What do you think we're doing?" Ellen snapped. "We're saving your sorry ass. We don't have time to break the deal, so we've got to take out the hounds. The more hunters we have here—"

"The more will die!" Sam said angrily. "You can't fight hellhounds."

"Well, what do you expect us to do?" Jo asked. "We can't just let you…"

"You can," Sam said firmly. "Why do you think I made this deal? I don't want it broken, because _this_ is the answer." His features twisted into a beatific smile. "Don't you understand? Dean's coming back."

Ellen covered her eyes with her hand. "And you will be gone. How is that right? I want Dean back as much as you do but—"

"No you don't!" Sam snapped. "You have no idea what it's like for me. He is in Hell right now, suffering unimaginable torment, because of me! My brother is gone and it's all my fault!" He panted in his anger, his every nerve feeling alive and electric as the fury burned through him. Eventually, his pounding heart slowed, and he was able to speak calmly. "I was dead, Ellen. I should be dead now. All I'm doing now is setting the score straight. Imagine if it was Jo, and you could save her. Tell me now that you wouldn't be doing exactly what I am doing now."

Ellen seemed to sag as the anger left her. "I can't. I can't stop you."

"Mom?" Jo said in a querulous voice.

"He's right," Ellen said. "If it was you, I would do the exact same thing. I love you Joanna Beth, more than anything or anyone in the world, and I would give my life for you in a heartbeat."

Jo rounded on her mother. "But we can't let him die!"

"You can," Sam said. "This is what I want, Jo, what I need."

Jo stared at him for a long moment and Sam tried to communicate his need with her. It didn't work. She spun on her heel and raced from the room, slamming the door behind her.

Ellen watched her go and then she stepped closer to Sam. Her hand came up and touched the place she had slapped him. "I'm so sorry, Sam."

"I'm not," Sam said. He knew she wasn't talking about the slap; she was talking about what was to come for him.

"Is there anything I can do?" she asked.

Sam nodded. "There's plenty."

* * *

Sam had told the crossroads demon that he didn't want time, but he had been wrong. If she had summoned the hounds there and then to take him away, he would have been leaving too big a hole for his brother to fill. As it was, a day didn't seem long enough to get everything done. He had a letter to write, arrangements to be made, and promises to be obtained. The last of which was causing the most problems.

"No, Sam. I can't stop you doing this, but I can stop you doing it alone."

"I don't want you there," Sam said through gritted teeth. "I will stay close, so you don't have so much work to do after, but I want you and Jo to stay inside."

"And why the hell would we do that?" Jo asked, speaking from the doorway. She had been resolutely ignoring Sam since she had stormed from the kitchen that morning, and it was now approaching eleven-thirty.

"Because you don't know what it's like, to watch them tearing someone apart while you are stuck there, unable to do a thing to help. I do." Sam remembered all too well how it had felt to watch Dean being torn apart by the hellhounds, and he wanted to spare Ellen and Jo from that sharing that experience. "I don't want you seeing that."

Ellen locked eyes with Sam, and he felt that she was weighing his determination, testing how steely his resolve was. Eventually, she nodded. "We'll stay inside."

"Mom!" Jo said stridently.

"We'll stay inside," Ellen said, ignoring Jo. "And… after, what do you want us to do then?"

Sam drew a deep breath. "I want a hunter's funeral. It's not about the symbology or the honor of the thing; it's about Dean. If there is nothing left of me, he won't have a choice about bringing me back. It'll be over."

"Are you sure that's what you want?" Ellen asked.

Sam huffed a laugh. "Why'd you think I've done this? I want Dean back and I want to be gone. If we don't close that window, Dean will spend the rest of his life hunting down crossroads and trying to make deals. He doesn't need to be distracted by that. There's important stuff for him to do."

Ellen nodded slowly, thinking hard. "You're not wrong there. All the hunters can feel it. Something big is coming, and we're not nearly ready for it."

Sam reached to his neck and unlooped the necklace that lay on his chest. "Give this to Dean with my letter."

"He's going to be mighty angry," Ellen said.

"I know, but it'll be too late for him to do anything about it by then." Sam checked his watch. Time was moving fast. It was almost time for him to go. He got to his feet and scrubbed a hand over his face. "I guess it's time for goodbye."

"I guess it is." Ellen came forward with her arms open wide. Sam stepped into them and pulled Ellen close against him. "Thank you so much for everything." He leaned back and looked at Jo. "Both of you. I don't have words for it, but…"

"We know," Ellen said in a choked voice.

Sam wanted to hug Jo but when he stepped closer to her, she moved away until her back was pressed against the wall.

"Jo," Ellen said in a soft, consoling tone.

Sam shook his head. "It's fine. I should go now anyway. You make sure you keep your promise."

"I won't call anyone until you're gone," Ellen said. "I promise." She stared searchingly at him. "Sam, I want you to know, you're doing a good thing. I won't call it the right thing, but you're doing a good thing."

"Tell Dean that," he said. "I don't think he'll understand otherwise."

"He won't understand at all," Jo said. "It doesn't matter what we say."

Sam nodded. "Maybe not. Still…" He raised his hand in farewell and moved to the door. It creaked as he opened it, and the cool night air hit him, making him shudder. He turned back one last time and smiled at Ellen. Tears were streaming down her face, but she smiled in return.

The door clicked closed behind him and all was quiet for a moment until the baying howls of the hounds reached him. He looked down at his watch. It was midnight.

It was time.

* * *

**So… who hates me? **

**I cried like a baby writing this chapter—and many others in this story. **

**If you enjoyed the chapter, please take a moment to review. It really does mean the world to me to hear what you thought of it. Constructive criticism will be given a grateful welcome and a loving home. **


	3. Chapter 3

**Thank you to everyone that read, reviewed, fave'd and alerted the last chapter. As a Sam girl, this story is something of an experiment for me, and I am so happy that there are some of you out there prepared to give it a go. **

**The first part of this chapter deals with Dean's return and interaction with Bobby. I have taken this from the show so feel free to skip it as there is little new there. I did consider doing my own take on his meeting with Bobby but I realized nothing I could write would be as good as the masterpiece Kripke wrote. If you decide to skip, the new material will start at the second page break. **

* * *

**Chapter Three**

The sun pounded down on Dean's shoulders as he walked along the road, making him slick with sweat. He caught sight of a gas station at the end of the road, and he breathed a sigh of relief. There would be people there, people that could help him, and water, which he needed more than anything; his throat felt desiccated.

His hopes were dashed when he reached the station though. Despite the fact it was the middle of the day and there was a car parked out front, there was no other sign of people around. There was a closed sign on the door, and when he peered through the grimy window, he saw that the place was empty.

He glanced back down the road to makes sure he really was alone, and then he bunched his shirt around his fist and smashed the window. The glass fell to the floor with soft tinkles as he cleared the frame and reached inside to unlatch the door. Stepping inside, he relished the cool air of the air conditioning for a moment. After the sweltering heat outside, it was a welcomed relief.

His eyes fell onto a cooler in the corner, laden with bottled water, and he crossed the small store in long strides. He pulled open the door and grabbed at a bottle of water. Dropping the cap to the floor, he gulped down the cool liquid, feeling it soothing his throat. When he had drank his fill, he moved over to a stack of newspapers. The date at the top of the _Pontiac Daily Gazette _read August 18th.

"August," he murmured. It had been only three months since he was savaged by the hellhounds. How could it only be three months when he could remember years of Hell? Years of torture, and days of… No. He wouldn't think about that. He had other things to worry about. Like what the hell he was going to do next.

He walked into the small bathroom and cleaned up, washing away the gritty dirt from his face and hands. He stared into the mirror for a moment, absorbing his own features. He expected to see something different in himself, signs of the years that had passed for him, but there was nothing, expect… There was something different about his eyes. There was something new there, a wariness and darkness. He wondered if it was only evident to him or if Sam would see it too.

_Sam!_

The name came to him like a lightning bolt. He had to find Sam. The last time he'd seen him, he'd been facing down Lilith. He could be… Dean shook his head. He couldn't allow that thought to finish. Sam was fine. He had to be fine.

He fumbled with the keys for the cash register for a moment, and then jerked back as the tray slid open. He snatched up the few notes inside and all the coins and pushed it closed again.

The phone booth smelled musty and slightly bitter, as if someone had used it for a bathroom in the not too distant past and no one had cleared it up properly. Wrinkling his nose, he wedged the receiver under his chin and began to feed coins into the slot. He dialed the number from memory, and held his breath as he waited for it to connect.

What would he say? _'Hey, Sammy, it's me, Dean. Guess what, I'm back from the dead!'_

It didn't matter that he couldn't think of a thing to say to his brother, as a recorded voice told him the number had been disconnected. Sighing to himself, he hung up and then redialed.

"Yeah?"

There was such infinite relief at hearing Bobby's voice that Dean felt a lump form in his throat. If Bobby was okay, Sam had to be too. Lilith wouldn't have left Bobby alive if she'd killed Sam.

He swallowed thickly. "Bobby?"

"Yeah."

"It's me."

"Who's me?"

"Dean."

The only response Dean got was the dial tone again. Bobby had hung up on him. He guessed it was too much to hope that Bobby would have recognized his voice.

He dialed again and Bobby's voice answered with poorly suppressed anger in his tone. "Who is this?"

"Bobby, listen to me," Dean said.

"This ain't funny. Call again, I'll kill ya."

Again, Dean heard the dial tone. He didn't bother calling again. Bobby likely wouldn't answer, and even if he did, Dean would be no more able to persuade him of the truth than he had been on the first two tries.

He stepped out of the booth and looked at his one last hope, an ugly ass Mercury Monterey. Musing on the pure bitchiness of fate, he walked and jimmied the lock. It was going to be a long and embarrassing ride to South Dakota.

* * *

As Dean drove through the wrought iron gate declaring _Singer's Salvage Yard_ he felt something settle deep within him. He had known since he clawed his way out of his own grave that he was back in the physical sense, but now he was _really _back. Soon, he would see Bobby and Sam. He would be home.

He expected to see the Impala parked beside Bobby's Chevelle in the yard, but it wasn't there. That wasn't the worst thing. Bobby would know where Sam was and they could go to him together.

He pulled the car to a stop and climbed out, relishing the thud of the door as it closed. He wouldn't be driving that thing again in this life. With light footsteps, he crossed the yard and climbed the steps to the house. He raised his hands and knocked then stepped back, waiting for Bobby to come.

He heard the bolts disengage and he wondered when Bobby had got so tight about security. Then the door swung open, and Dean ceased to care about Bobby's security plans, because he was there. He looked the same as he ever did, with his grubby baseball cap and layered shirts.

Bobby's mouth was slack as he stared at Dean. He looked stunned.

"Surprise," Dean said with a small smile.

Bobby took a step back. "I don't…"

"Yeah, me neither." Dean crossed the threshold into the house. "But here I am."

Something like resolve settled over Bobby and a split second later, he was brandishing a knife at Dean. He slashed it through the air and Dean jumped back and then gripped Bobby's wrist. Bobby broke his grip and landed a backhanded punch on Dean's face, sending him stumbling back.

"Bobby! It's me!" Dean said, holding up his hands.

"My ass!" Bobby came at him again, holding the knife up.

Dean grabbed a chair and placed it between them. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait! Your name is Robert Steven Singer. You became a hunter after your wife got possessed, and you're about the closest thing I have to a father. Bobby. It's me!"

Bobby shoved the chair away and came at Dean slowly. Dean straightened, wondering whether another punch was coming at him. Bobby reached out and placed a hand on Dean's arm, as if not sure whether what he was seeing was real or not. Dean smiled ruefully, thinking he had got through to Bobby, when Bobby slashed at him with the knife again. Dean spun him and pulled the knife from Bobby's grip.

"I'm not a shapeshifter!" he said.

Bobby struggled in his grip. "Then you're a Revenant!"

Dean shoved Bobby away and held the knife up between them. "Alright. If I was either, could I do this with a silver knife?" He rolled up the sleeve of his shirt and pressed the blade down and through his skin. Blood welled in the wound and dripped down his arm.

"Dean?" Bobby said hopefully.

Dean grimaced. "That's what I've been trying to tell you."

Bobby came forward and threw his arms around Dean, pulling him into a tight hug. Dean returned his embrace with enthusiasm, relishing the contact.

After a long moment, Bobby released Dean and held him at arm's length. "It's... It's good to see you, boy. "

Dean smiled. "Yeah, you too."

"But... how did you bust out?"

"I don't know. I just woke up in a pine box..." His words were cut off as Bobby emptied a bottle of holy water into his face. It dripped down his face and he spat a mouthful onto the floor.

"I'm not a demon either, you know. "

Bobby shrugged. "Sorry. Can't be too careful." He handed Dean a towel,

Bobby made for the study and Dean followed, mopping the water from his face.

"So, you're back," Bobby said. "That don't make a lick of sense. "

"Yeah. Yeah, you're preaching to the choir."

Bobby frowned. "Dean, your chest was ribbons, your insides were slop. And you've been buried _three_ _months_. Even if you could slip out of Hell and back into your meat suit —"

"I know, I should look like a Thriller video reject."

"What do you remember?"

Dean winced as he though back through the months to what had happened to him. "Not much. I remember I was a Hellhound's chew toy," he smirked, "and then... lights out. Then I come to six feet under, that was it. Sam's number's not working. He's, uh... he's not..." He hated to ask the question, but Bobby hadn't mentioned Sam yet, and that didn't sit well with him.

"Oh, he's alive. As far as I know."

Dean closed his eyes for a moment, absorbing the moment of relief. His brother was alive. "Good... Wait, what do you mean, as far as you know?"

"I haven't talked to him for months," Bobby admitted.

Dean's eyebrows rose. "You're kidding; you just let him go off by himself?"

Bobby sighed heavily and sat down at his desk. "He was dead set on it."

"Bobby, you should've been looking after him."

"I tried," Bobby said defensively. "These last months haven't been exactly easy, you know. For him or me. We had to bury you." Something passed over Bobby face as he said it. Some dark memory, perhaps the memory of that night.

"Why did you bury me, anyway?" Dean asked, hoping to wash that look from Bobby's face. It worked; Bobby scowled.

"I wanted you salted and burned. Usual drill. But Sam wouldn't have it."

Dean thought of how bad things could have been had he not had a body to come back to. "Well, I'm glad he won that one."

Bobby looked at him and the darkness in his expression had returned. "He said you'd need a body when he got you back home somehow. That's about all he said."

" What do you mean?"

"He was quiet. Real quiet. And then he just took off. Wouldn't return my calls. I tried to find him, but he didn't want to be found."

Dean sighed. Bobby wouldn't have been able to find Sam if he didn't want to be found, but he didn't have Dean's advantages. He knew about his brother, including his aliases, so finding him would be a piece of cake. And when he found him, he would hug him and punch him in that order. Hug him because damn it would be good to see him again and punch him for making Bobby worry.

* * *

After a few minutes talking to the helpful guy at _Ace Mobile,_ Dean crossed to the laptop on the desk. "Sam's in…" he pressed a few keys, "Lincoln, Nebraska."

"Lincoln?" Bobby asked and then cursed. "Dammit, Ellen."

"What's Ellen done?" Dean hadn't heard word of Ellen or Jo since the Devil's Gate opened. He and Sam had, by unspoken agreement, steered clear of them in the year before his death. Dean's own reasoning was simple. He was on his way out and the more people he bonded with before that happened, the more that would suffer after.

Bobby tugged off his cap and dropped it onto the desk. Running his hands through his graying hair, he spoke through gritted teeth. "Her and Jo have set up shop just outside of Lincoln. Some podunk town called River Crossing."

"You think Sammy's with her?"

"I think so. The damn woman has been lying to me for weeks. I told you I've been trying to find him. She was one of the first people I called."

"Why'd you think she lied?"

Bobby shrugged. "No idea, but I'm sure as hell gonna find out."

Despite Bobby's pique, Dean was pleased to have found Sam, especially in the company of friends. He had worried Sam would strike off alone after he was gone, and Sam wasn't made for the solitary life. He needed people around him to keep him on the up and up. He cracked his knuckles. "Let's get gone then. Sooner we find Sammy, the better."

Bobby nodded and Dean saw a slight smile curve his lips. For all his anger towards Ellen, Dean knew he was as happy about seeing Sam again as he was.

Dean had no clean clothes at Bobby's, as Sam had apparently taken his duffel in the Impala when he'd left Bobby's the last time, so he had to stay in his dusty and holy water doused clothes as he made his way out to the car. He wished it could have been the Impala he was climbing into, but that was still with Sam. Consoling himself with the fact he would be reunited with his baby soon, he settled in the passenger seat of the Chevelle and tapped his feet as he waited for Bobby to lock up the house.

After what seemed like hours, Bobby got in behind the steering wheel and he gunned the engine to life. With a spurt of dust, they were on the road, heading to Nebraska and Sam.

* * *

The worst part was the quiet. The only noise that broke the night was the clock that ticked over the bar. They hadn't opened up that day, and after the first few people banged on the door and left unanswered, word seemed to spread that Bill's wasn't open for business, so there was no distraction from the wait.

As the clock struck twelve, the howling started and Jo shuddered.

"It's okay, honey," Ellen said. "It's going to be okay."

Jo rounded on her mother, a dozen insults and accusations on the tip of her tongue, but when she caught sight of Ellen's tear streaked face the words died. Ellen was doing her job as a mother, trying to make this easier for Jo. There was no making it easier though. At that very moment, the Hellhounds were coming for Sam, and there was nothing they could do to save him. He didn't want to be saved.

Tears spilled down Jo's cheeks and she folded into a chair, burying her face in her hands. Ellen crossed the room and knelt down in front of her. Enclosing Jo in her arms, she murmured soothing words through her own tears.

Outside, there was a howl, different to the baying of the hounds. It was the sound of a human's suffering. It made Jo cry harder than ever. Sam was making that sound. Sam who'd sat down at the dinner table with her night after night, fighting through his pain to make conversation with her, asking about her hunts and her life, as if it could have any value to him after all he'd lost. It was Sam, her friend.

The howl cut off abruptly, and Jo knew it was over. He was gone. She tried to pull out of her mother's embrace, but Ellen clung to her harder.

"Mom?"

"It's okay, honey," she crooned. "He's okay."

But he wasn't okay. That was the problem. He was gone.

The clock above the stove clicked on, and still Jo remained trapped in her mother's arms. She knew that Ellen needed her to cling to, so she didn't pull away. She just leaned into her mother's touch and inhaled the scent of home.

Eventually, Ellen released Jo and got to her feet. Wiping a hand over her face, sweeping away the tear tracks, she took a deep breath and sniffed. "We've got work to do," she said vaguely, as if talking to herself.

She moved to the door and opened it slowly, as if afraid the hound was still there, waiting for another soul to make itself known so it could sate its need for violence. Nothing moved outside though, all was silent and still, even the cicadas had fallen quiet in the face of tragedy. Jo followed her mother outside and stopped dead in her tracks.

He hadn't gone far, no more than ten feet from the building. He lay on the ground, perfectly still. The white shirt he had been wearing was slashed and torn by the hound's claws and dark blood stood out starkly in the dim light cast from the kitchen window. His eyes were open and staring, but his face was peaceful. Despite the agony that his end must have been, Jo thought he looked happy. As if he knew the pain was worth it.

Ellen squatted beside him and laid a hand on his cheek. "Oh, Sam," she said softly.

Jo wanted to run inside and hide from the scene, but she knew she couldn't. Her mother needed her to be strong now, as her innate strength seemed to have deserted her.

"We need to get him inside," Jo said. "Clean him up. Dean will be here sooner or later, and he shouldn't have to see him like this." Ellen nodded, still resting one hand on Sam's cheek. "C'mon, Mom, help me."

Jo moved to Sam's head, and through she felt sick to her stomach with what she had to do, she hooked her arms under Sam's and lifted him from the dirty ground. Ellen moved to his feet, and between them, they managed to get him up and through the kitchen into the room he'd taken as his own. There was nothing dignified in the way they heaved him onto the bed, and the bedsprings shrieked as his weight fell on them.

Jo moved to the closet and swung open the doors but there was nothing inside but a ratty looking canvas holdall. She pulled it out and opened it to find a stash of maps with Sharpie inked crosses dotted over it. Examining it, she saw they all fell on crossroads. That must be how Sam had kept track of the demons he had tried. He moved the maps to one side and pulled out a clean shirt and pair of jeans for Sam.

As she laid them down on the end of the bed and started to unbutton Sam's ragged shirt, Ellen seemed to snap out of the haze she had been lost in. "What are you doing?" she asked.

"We've got to clean him up, Mom," Jo said.

Ellen nodded. "I'll do it."

"But…"

"There are many things in life that I want you to experience, Joanna Beth, but this isn't one of them. You go fetch me some water and a washcloth and I will do the rest."

A small, cowardly part of Jo was relieved to be ordered away. As much as she wanted Sam to be cleaned up and cared for, she didn't want to see it happen. She didn't want to look at the ragged wounds the Hellhound had left for a minute longer that was necessary. She hurried into the bathroom and filled a bowl with warm water.

Ellen was waiting for her at the door and she took the bowl and washcloth wordlessly. "You go fix us a drink," she said. "I'll be right out."

She waited as her mother clicked the door closed behind her and then she went into the kitchen. Hunters weren't the most discerning of palates for liquor; the rule seemed to be if it got you loaded, it was okay, so Ellen and Jo never bothered to stock the shelves with decent bottles, but for as long as Jo could remember, Ellen had kept a bottle of Jack Daniels in the kitchen cupboard. It had been her father's favorite drink, and Jo remembered him sipping a glass on the nights he returned triumphant from a hunt. Despite the fact Bill Harvelle had been dead since '95, Ellen had kept his drink in, as if one day he would return and need it. They both needed it now.

Jo poured them each a glass and sat at the table with her in front of her, waiting for her mother. She could hear Ellen's murmuring voice through the closed door, and she guessed she was talking to Sam as she cleaned him up. With a choked sob, Jo buried her face in her hands. Her mother was talking but Sam wasn't there to listen. He was dead, gone. He could never return, because once Ellen was done and Sam was cleaned up, they would have to wrap his body and burn him. She didn't think she could bear to watch him go up in flames.

The door clicked open and Ellen came slowly into the kitchen. She took a seat opposite Jo and picked up her glass. "To Sam."

Jo looked into her mother's face and saw the grief in the lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth. She looked tired and old, as if the pain of what had happened was weighing her down like a physical thing.

She raised her glass. "To Sam."

There was a moment of silence as they sipped at their drinks and then the rumble of an approaching engine reached them.

Jo looked up at the clock. It was one-am. Dean had missed Sam by only an hour.

* * *

**Special thanks to everyone that reviewed. I love hearing what you think and it means so much to me that you take a minute to leave your thoughts with me. If you have questions, feel free to ask. I love chatting with readers and talking about this story. **

**Question: Are you reading this and seeing lots of errors? Does my grammar make you cringe? If so would you be interested in beta'ing? I don't have a beta for this story, and despite the fact I proofread each chapter a few times, I still miss things. If you're interested please drop me a message. **

**CoM x **


	4. Chapter 4

**Please welcome SandraEngstrom2 to the story. She has taken on the mantle of my beta—Chuck bless her—and any improvements you might notice in grammar/spelling are down to her. Thank you, Sandra. I feel I should add a Kleenex warning to this chapter. It has a trigger warning for uncontrollable sobbing—or maybe that was just me.**

* * *

**Chapter Four**

Dean threw open the car door before Bobby had even finished pulling up at the bar.

"Baby! I missed you!" he hollered, running a hand over the smooth chrome of the Impala's hood. It looked like Sam had been keeping up his end on the bargain by taking care of her. She'd been waxed recently, and the dust that swirled around hadn't found a home on her paintwork.

"You two need a moment alone?" Bobby asked as he climbed from the Chevelle.

Dean grinned. "We're just getting reacquainted, Bobby."

"So I see. Here I was thinking we'd driven all this way so you could see your brother again."

Dean knew Bobby was still pissed at Ellen for leaving him out of the loop where Sam was concerned, so he didn't take his grouchiness to heart. Besides, Bobby had a point. As awesome as it was to see his baby again, it would be nothing compared to seeing his brother.

He looked up at the building they'd come to. It was largely wooden in structure—despite the fiery fate of the Roadhouse—and a large sign declared the name as _Bill's. _Though it was late and there were no other cars around other than the Chevelle, Impala and a crapped out Ford, the lights were burning in the windows, as if there was a party happening inside.

If there wasn't already, there would be soon, Dean thought. He was back from the pit, his brother was here, there was a lot to celebrate.

Bobby straightened his cap and made towards the door and Dean followed. As Bobby lifted his hand to pound on the door—he was still obviously pissed—the lock disengaged and the door opened. Dean grinned as he saw Jo and then his smile faded as she stepped into the light and he caught sight of her face. There were tear tracks drying on her face, and her mouth was twisted with regret. What worried Dean the most was the fact that, though she surely knew the story of what had happened to him, she showed no shock at seeing him returned from the dead. Which meant she was expecting him.

"You okay, Jo?" Bobby asked.

She shook her head and stepped back so they could come inside. Dean entered and looked around the bar. It was brightly lit but empty and clean. It didn't look like they'd been open for business that day. Ellen stood at the opposite end of the room and she looked even more wrecked than Jo.

Dean wasn't stupid. He didn't have Sam's LSAT scores, but he was plenty smart, and best of all, he could read people. He knew something big had happened and he had a sick tightening sensation in his gut that it was something to do with Sam. Knowledge was supposed to be power, but he didn't feel powerful in that moment; he felt weakened and brought low by his suspicions.

"Ellen, what's happened?" Bobby asked.

Dean wanted him to retract the question. He didn't want to know the answer. He didn't want his suspicions confirmed. Something had happened to Sam, but if no one spoke it, it wasn't real. He could pretend his brother was just beyond that door waiting for him. They would hug and Dean would ream Sam out for making him worry, but they would be together and they would both be okay.

Ellen came forward until she was standing in front of Dean and she reached out to touch him. "Dean, I'm so…"

Dean jerked away from her, shaking his head. He didn't want to hear what she had to say. He just wanted to see Sam. He put on a beaming smile. "So, where is he?"

Ellen swallowed thickly. "I'm sorry, Dean."

"No!" Bobby's exclamation was breathy and quiet, but it cut through Dean like a knife.

He shook his head. This was all a misunderstanding. Sam was fine. He would be right out. He was just taking a minute. You needed a minute when your brother came back from the dead; Dean knew that for a fact. He would be lurking just behind that door now, maybe a little wet around the eyes, taking time to compose himself before he saw Dean.

"What happened?" Bobby asked.

"He made a deal," Jo said.

Dean felt something heavy slide into his gut. It was the weight of realization. Sam had made a deal. _That_ was how he'd been brought back. His stupid brother had made a deal. No wonder he was hiding behind the door. He didn't want to face Dean.

"It's okay," Dean said, speaking loudly so Sam could hear him too. "Well take care of it."

Ellen looked at him sympathetically and shook her head. "It's too late, Dean."

"'Course it's not. We'll fix it. _I'll _fix it. Won't be the first time I've had to clean up one of Sam's messes." He looked to the door, waiting for his brother to step into the room, with his shaggy hair and what was sure to be a repentant expression. He would know he was in trouble, but he would also know Dean would fix it. That was his job. He looked from Jo to Ellen, a smile across his face. "Where is he anyway?"

Bobby sniffed noisily and Dean's gaze snapped to him. There was wetness in Bobby's eyes and his expression was haunted. "Dean…"

"No." Dean shook his head. "He's okay, right, Ellen? He's fine. He's just scared I'm gonna kick his ass."

"I'm so sorry, Dean," Ellen said gently.

"No!" Dean shook his head jerkily. He didn't want to hear her apologies; he just wanted his brother to show himself to take his ass kicking like a man. "You're wrong. He's fine."

Ellen blinked and a tear slid down her cheek. "They came for him at midnight."

It was the tear that did it. There was no reason why that should have reached him when nothing else could have, but it did.

The realization that Sam was gone hit him like a wrecking ball. He'd known it from the second he saw Jo's tears that it was because Sam was gone, but his mind refused to accept it. He groaned and bowed at the waist.

Sam gone. Sam dead. It was too much to take in.

Someone was talking to him and tugging on his arm. He allowed himself to be led to a chair. He sat with someone's shaking hand on his shoulder and someone else kneeling in front of him, cupping his face in their warm palms. He looked up into Jo's deep brown eyes and his heart broke, because he saw the truth there. Her eyes were no longer alight with the excitement of life. She had seen and done things since he last saw her that had changed her. And those things had been Sam.

"What happened?" he asked in a hoarse voice. It seemed all power in him had been stolen by the tragedy of his loss.

"He made a deal," Ellen said. "Last night."

Only a night ago. When Dean had woken, scared out of his mind, in a pine box in the ground, Sam had probably been walking away from the crossroads. When Dean had been clawing his way out of the ground, lungs burning and heart sure that he was going to die again in the attempt to get free, Sam had been driving. The long hours Dean had spent walking through the wilderness, looking for a road to follow, Sam had been… What? What had Sam done with his last day on Earth if it hadn't been to look for his brother? He would have known where to find him. He would have known where Dean would have gone. Why hadn't he been waiting at Bobby's for him?

"Why?"

He wasn't aware that he'd asked the question until Ellen answered him. "Because he wanted to save you. After everything you'd done for him, he had to save you."

Dean bowed his head and a tear slipped down his cheek. Sam had saved him, but he'd never wanted to be saved like this.

"Where…" Bobby's voice was unsteady and he cleared his throat roughly. "Where is he now?"

Dean looked up. Until that moment he had been at a loss as to what he had to do next. Now, he knew. He had to see his brother.

"He's in his room," Jo said softly. "I can show you."

Dean got to unsteady feet and followed Jo through the door that he had been convinced had hidden his brother. He was right in a way. Sam was behind it but not in the way he needed him to be. They came out in a long hall. There were three closed doors leading off it and an open door at the end that led into what looked like a kitchen. Jo came to a door in the middle and she eased it open.

Dean took a deep, hitching breath as it creaked open. He knew what he was going to see behind there, and he wasn't sure he could bear to see it again. It felt like a lifetime ago that Sam had breathed what would have been his last breath in a dark, muddy road in Cold Oak. Dean had held him then as the life bled out of him and then he had carried him back to a cabin in the middle of nowhere. There, he had cleaned up his brother, putting him in clean clothes, and he'd laid him out on the bed. Would he have to carry out that heart-wrenching task again? Would he have to clean and thread Sam's unresisting arms into a clean shirt, chosen because it looked the most comfortable when he was beyond comfort or discomfort, dressing him in what he would wear for the rest of time?

Jo let the door open only a couple of inches and then she stepped back. "Do you want me to…?" She let the question trail off.

Dean shook his head. He wanted to be alone with his brother. That was the way it always was for them. People came and went, like Bobby, Ellen and Jo, but really, they only had each other. Now, Dean had no one. He was alone in the world.

Jo touched his arm and then turned and left him alone.

Dean closed his eyes for a moment, summoning strength, and then stepped inside the room. Sam was laid out on the bed. A blanket had been pulled up to his chin, and with a tightening in his guts, Dean realized that was there to hide the marks of his violent end. If not for the pallor of his skin and the fact his chest was unmoving, it would be possible to believe Sam was sleeping. Someone had cleaned him up already. Dean wasn't sure whether or not that was a good thing. In a way, it was good, as it saved him from needing to tend to his brother's corpse again, but on the other hand, it denied him the chance to fulfill his brother's last needs.

"Dammit, Sammy," he said softly. "Why'd you have to do this?"

He dropped to his knees beside the bed and laid a hand on Sam's arm. He looked into Sam's face and he noticed the expression for the first time. He'd heard people talk about how dead people looked peaceful or happy, and he'd mainly put it aside as bullshit people said to make themselves feel better. Sam didn't look peaceful to him. He looked satisfied. His features had frozen in the expression of satisfaction Sam must have worn as he'd died. That meant, while he was in unbearable agony, drawing his last breaths, he had been happy with what was happening. No, happy was the wrong word; he'd been satisfied.

Tears filled his eyes as he stared at Sam and slid down his cheeks. He made no effort to halt their flow. There was no one to see him, and even if there were, who would think less of him for crying for his loss?

He stayed there on his knees, taking time with his brother, for a long while, long past the point at which his knees stopped protesting against the contact with the hard floor. It seemed absurd that he had aches and pains now, when his heart was already in overwhelming agony. He heard the others talking from the bar, but he paid no attention to them until he heard his name mentioned.

"You think Dean's ready for it, Mom?"

There was a heavy sigh. "I don't think he'll ever be ready."

Dean pushed himself to his feet and, casting his brother a look of regret, he plodded into the bar. "Ready for what?" he asked.

Jo started as she caught sight of him and she chewed her lip, looking thoughtful.

"Ready for this," Ellen said, holding out a white envelope.

Dean took it and turned it over in his hands. It was addressed in Sam's neat hand to him. Without looking at anyone, he turned and walked back to Sam's bedroom. There was a chair beside the bed, and he sank down onto it. He didn't tear into the envelope; he opened it carefully as if avoiding its injury. This was his brother's last gift, and it deserved to be treated with care. Pulling out the single sheet of paper inside, he wiped at his eyes and began to read.

_Dean, _

_I don't know how to start this letter. I don't know how to put into words all that needs to be said. _

_If you're reading this, you have found Bill's and you know what happened. I am gone, and this time, there's no coming back. The thought of you standing in the bar, reading this letter, makes me equally happy and sad. I am happy because it means it worked, and I saved you, but it also means I am not there with you. _

_I know you're probably angry, and I'm sure Bobby is too. Tell him I'm sorry that I couldn't spend these past few months with him, but he would have stopped me doing what's right. Don't be angry at Ellen and Jo. For their part, they never knew I would succeed. I got lucky. _

_If I worked things out well enough, it should take you a few days for you to find Ellen, and I will be salted and burned and beyond your reach to retrieve. Don't be angry with her. I made it this way for a reason. I didn't want my body to tempt you to try to save me. I can't be saved, Dean, not this time. This time I was the one that did the saving. With this deal, I have finally made a choice Dad can be proud of. _

_Now for the mushy stuff that's going to make you groan. I love you, Dean. I always have, even when I wasn't there to show it. I am grateful for everything you ever did for me. No one knows what you had to give up for me better than I do. You won't have to give up anything else. _

_Go on. Live your life. Hunt and save people or rest and save yourself. Whatever you do, make sure it makes you happy. Life's too long to be miserable, Dean. _

_Your brother, _

_Sam. _

Dean folded the letter carefully and put it back inside the envelope. Tucking it inside his pocket, he looked down at his brother. "Didn't work out quite how you planned, did it Sammy?"

One part of his brother's great plan had failed. He wasn't supposed to be here for a few days yet. Sam had underestimated Dean's ability to track him down. Sam's body was not yet salted and burned, and Dean was going to sure it stayed that way. They wouldn't even need to bury him. He was going to find himself a crossroads and make a deal. Sam would be back where he belonged and Dean would be back in the pit, where _he _belonged. He had no place in the world, not without his brother. Sam was the good one, the one that deserved life. Dean was tainted now. He had been since the day he accepted Alastair's offer and switched from tortured to torturer.

Dean took one last look at his brother, absorbing the sight of him, as he would never see him again, and walked back into the bar.

Bobby, Ellen and Jo were seated around a table, each with a glass of whiskey in front of them. As Dean came in, they looked up. Bobby got to his feet and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Leave me alone, Bobby," Dean said before Bobby had even opened his mouth to speak. He could see the words brimming in Bobby's eyes and he didn't want to hear it.

"I will not," Bobby said firmly.

If Dean wasn't so lost in his grief, he would have been amused to see the resolve in Bobby's eyes. As if what Bobby thought mattered to him now. "I'm asking you to do something for me, Bobby. Let me be."

"I will not," Bobby said again. "I'm done listening to what you Winchesters want from me. I left you alone before and you went and made a deal. I left your brother alone and he did the same damn thing. I'm not making the same mistake again. There's a boy in there, _dead_"—his voice broke—"because I gave him what he wanted—space. I won't see it happen again."

"Then you know why I'm asking," Dean said. "I want you, all of you, to leave me alone so I can make this right." He pointed at the door. "My brother is lying there, dead. His soul is in Hell suffering, all because of me. If you think I'm going to leave him to suffer—"

Dean's words cut off as the bar door swung open and bounced off the wall. Dean spun on his heel and saw an unfamiliar woman standing in the doorway. She was young, with long, dark hair and russet skin. She would have been beautiful if not for her crimson eyes.

"Round and round the Winchesters go. Where they will stop, no one knows." She laughed. "Well, no one but me."

Dean reached back into his pocket for a weapon then realized he wasn't packing his usual armory. Since being sprung from Hell and finding his brother dead, he hadn't had a chance to rearm himself. Ruby's knife was who-knew-where and Dean was without even a bottle of holy water to defend himself.

Ellen and Jo had jumped to their feet at the demon's arrival, but as far as Dean knew, they were just as unarmed as he and Bobby were.

"What do you want?" Bobby growled.

She tapped a manicured finger against her chin. "You know, it's so strange to be asked that question. Usually it's mine to ask. Now, let's all sit down and have a little chat." She flung her arms out and Jo, Ellen and Bobby were forced into the chairs they had vacated. Dean was left alone standing in the middle of the room.

"Well, well, Dean Winchester." She walked in a circle around him, examining him like a horse dealer brought a new nag. "You should be on bended knee, thanking me right now."

"Yeah?" Dean said with bravado. "And why's that?"

"Because it is thanks to me that you are free."

Realization settled over Dean like a too tight cloak. "You made the deal with Sammy." His hands fisted at his sides.

She came to a stop in front of him and she smiled. "I did. It was the best deal of my life."

Dean lunged at her with his hands outstretched. He didn't care that it was a pointless attempt or that the demon was possessing some poor young girl, he was going to choke the life out of the demon or die trying.

With a lazy wave of her arm, the demon sent Dean flying back until he hit the wall, hard. His eyes blurred for a second and he felt a sickening pain in the back of his head, but all he cared about was the demon striding towards him. She looked supremely satisfied by what she had said so far, and judging from the wide curve to her lips, she had more to say.

"Now, Winchester, let's talk this through."

"Leave him alone," Bobby said through gritted teeth. He was struggling to right himself, but the demon had him held fast.

"Wait your turn!" the demon snapped, turning on Bobby. "I'll get to you in a minute." She straightened the folds of her short skirt, and smiled at Dean. "So, widdle Deany Winchester wants to make another deal. Hard luck, sweetheart. We're all sworn off making deals with Winchesters now. Most of us were before, but Sam had just the right sob story to pluck at my heartstrings. Poor Sammy, alone in the world after his big brother took the fall for him, trapped in a world that he didn't want anymore. You can't imagine how his pain called to me. And his tears…" She sighed. "I had to do what I could to help him."

Dean didn't want to hear about Sam's pain, not from a demon. He knew it must have been bad for his brother after he'd died, but he refused to believe he'd gone crying to a demon. He was too strong for that.

"If you're sworn off making deals with Winchesters, why did you deal with Sam?" Ellen asked. "He searched for months. What made you different?"

The demon tilted her head to the side. "See, she asks the right questions. You want to stay close to this one, Dean. She'll be able to take care of you now little brother's gone." She looked across at Ellen. "The answer to your question is simple. It's a family business. I owed the Winchesters, and when Sammy came to me, I was only too happy to make a deal. I want them to suffer."

"What did we ever do to you?" Dean asked. "Other than dedicate our lives to ending your kind, of course."

"It's a _family_ thing, Dean," the demon said. "You destroyed my family, therefore I destroy yours." When she saw that Dean was still clueless, she went on. "Azazel. Yellow-Eyes. My father. You killed him."

"Meg?"

The demon snarled. "Of course that's the only one of us you know. My damned sister. She got the glory while I—"

"Got the hand-me-downs and chores," Bobby said. "Sorry for ya, really."

The demon closed her eyes for a moment, seeming to summon patience. "Meg was the weapon my father needed to find and trap Sam. I was the family provider. I kept the fires of Hell stocked with souls. We all had our roles to play."

"And I killed your pa," Dean said. "I'd say sorry, but I think we'd both know I wouldn't mean it."

She sneered. "And I killed your brother. I'd say I'm sorry too, but I couldn't keep a straight face doing it. Truth is, your brother was the best deal I ever made, even though it's going to be the end of me. I got my revenge. Sammy is burning already, and you have to go on alone. It's perfect. My revenge is finally complete."

"You say this is going to end you?" Bobby said thoughtfully.

She nodded. "I broke the rules. None of us were to deal with a Winchester. I am officially a wanted woman. I can almost hear the hounds calling me home. One more thing before I go," She turned to face Dean. "I can tell what's going on behind that Cro-Magnon brow of yours. You're thinking you can make a deal to get Sammy back and you can return to the rack. You're wrong. I am the last of my family in the business of making deals. The others toe the line."

Dean shook his head. It didn't matter what this abomination said, he was going to get his brother back where he belonged.

The demon shrugged. "Fine, don't believe me. You'll see soon enough anyway. Now, I have to go. There are a couple of Hellhounds baying for my blood, and knowing my luck, they'll have followed the stench of your gas-guzzler right back here like I did. Dean, enjoy your life, I'm hoping it's a long one. The rest of you"—she looked into Bobby's eyes—"make sure he buries the corpse before it starts stinking up the place." That said, she sauntered out of the door.

The second Dean was released from his position pinned against the wall, he crossed the room to the door. He could see no sign of the demon anywhere, but he thought in the far distance, he could hear a hound baying at the moon.

* * *

**Thank you all for the overwhelming response to chapter three. I am still shocked there are so many of you prepared to give this story a go. If you enjoyed the chapter, please take a moment to let me know what you think. Constructive criticism is very welcome. I am new to the Dean-verse and anything you can think of that will improve the story will be much appreciated. **

**CoM x **


	5. Chapter 5

**Thank again to SandraEngstrom2 who took the time to beta this for me. Love you, hon. **

**I didn't think this chapter needed a Kleenex warning—it didn't make me cry to write it—but Sandra disagrees, so take this as a head up. Here there be angst.**

* * *

**Chapter Five**

Dean was still standing in the open doorway when Ellen came up behind him and laid her hand on his shoulder. His muscles bunched at the contact. He didn't want to be touched. She seemed to understand, as she pulled her hand away slowly.

"I have some things for you," she said.

Dean turned his attention from the rolling road outside to her. "You do."

She put a hand in her pocket and pulled out a set of keys and a necklace. He recognized both immediately as they had been part of his life for too many years to count.

"Sam wanted you to have these back," she said gently. "He told me… before."

Dean nodded and fought back the tears that wanted to spill down his cheeks. "Thanks, Ellen. Not just for this. For everything. For taking Sammy in and…"

She blinked and a tear rolled down her face. "He was family, just like you."

Dean closed his eyes for a moment, making sure that his emotions were under control, and then he nodded. "Thanks."

He looped the amulet around his neck and felt its familiar weight as it rested against his chest. It felt good to have it back, even if it was only for a little while. He tossed his keys from one hand to the other and then stuffed them in his pocket. He was about to make his exit when Bobby cleared his throat loudly.

Dean looked up at him, trying for an innocent expression. Bobby knew exactly what he was thinking, and Dean didn't want to get into an argument about his immediate plans. Unfortunately for Dean, Bobby didn't seem to get the message.

"There's things we need to talk about," Bobby said. "Things we need to do."

Dean nodded. "I know, and I know what you're going to say, but we're not doing that. I'm not burning him."

"It's what he wanted, Dean," Ellen said gently. "He made me promise."

"You're just going to have to break that promise," Dean said. "No one is touching Sammy till I get back."

Bobby crossed his arms over his chest. "Back from where exactly?"

"You know where I'm going and what I am going to do." There was no need for the pretence. They all knew what had to happen next; Dean was going to save Sam.

"I know what you _think_ you're going to do," Bobby growled. "I also know you were listening when that demon bitch told you there were no more deals for Winchesters."

"What does she know?" Dean forced a laugh. "Me and Sammy have been breaking the rules for years."

"Maybe this is one rule you shouldn't go breaking."

Dean rounded on Bobby. "You want him dead!"

Bobby's hands fisted at his sides and he breathed hard through his nose. "You're hurting, I get that, but if you _dare_ to say something like that ever again, I will take a tire iron to your thick skull. That boy in there"—he pointed at the door leading to the hall, leading to Sam—"is _my_ boy. You both are. He's gone, and that there just about tears my heart out, but you're alive, and for that I am thankful. Your brother did a good thing, saving you, and I'm not going to let you piss all over his corpse by trying to take that away from him now."

"He's not just dead, Bobby. He's in _Hell!_" Dean said emphatically. "You don't know what it's like there; the heat, the blood, the pain and the fury. I'm not leaving him."

Jo sniffed quietly and Dean saw that tears were streaming down her cheeks. Dean's anger left him in a rush. He wasn't the only person hurting there, they all cared about Sam, but he was hurting the most. It was his little brother that had gone, and it was down to him to bring him back.

"I have to do it," he said softly.

Bobby threw his arms up. "It's not going to work, Dean! You can go to that demon, and you can beg and plead and make yourself its bitch, but it won't bring him back!"

Dean smiled sadly. "The least I can do is try."

He walked out of the open door and to the Impala. The thought that he had been pleased to see it when he'd arrived seemed laughable. It was just a hunk of metal to him now, a means to an end. It would get him to a crossroads and that would do. After that… he didn't care what happened.

* * *

Dean didn't know the Lincoln area well, and he had even less knowledge of the many back roads that sprawled out around the city. He drove for an hour before he came to a likely looking spot. He pulled the car over and climbed out. The night was still and quiet, and he felt a shiver pass up his spine as he looked up and down the dark road.

He saw a plant at the side of the road, and he squatted down to examine it. Even in the darkness, it was recognizable as yarrow. That gave him hope. It had been growing at the last two crossroads he'd visited, the time they were trying to save the patrons of Lloyd's bar and the time he'd made his own deal to save Sam. Both times, there had been an active demon working the area.

He opened the trunk and sorted through the weapons, looking for what he needed. He was able to hodge-podge together a suitable offering for the demon. He scuffed at the dirt in the center of the crossroads with the heel of his boot and buried the tin, covering it with a sprinkling of dirt. It wasn't buried deep, but he figured it would work just as well.

He stepped back from the hole and shoved his hands into his pockets, waiting. He didn't have to wait long. There was a low laugh behind him, and Dean turned and saw an average-height man wearing a dark overcoat and black suit. He had a scruff of heavy stubble and when he spoke, it was with a cockney accent. "What is it with you, Winchesters?"

Dean crossed his arms over his chest, not answering.

"No, really, I'm honestly curious," the demon said. "I mean once is all very well. A father's love and all that. But then there's you, doing it for your kid brother. I put that down misplaced responsibilities forced on you since childhood. Then comes Sam… I guess we can chalk it up to guilt. But here you are again. I have to ask; don't you Winchesters ever get tired of the constant merry-go-round of deals and goodbyes?"

"You know what I want," Dean said steadily.

"You want your soul swapped with your brother's," the demon said. "I get that, I do. Clearly family really means something to you Winchesters. You can't say that about a lot of people these days. Months go by without a phone call or a postcard for most. But I can't help you. We're sworn off of making deals with Winchesters."

Dean nodded. "Yeah, I heard that, but that rule's been broken once already this week, and I figure it could use another go."

The demon raised his arms at his sides and smiled deprecatingly. "I'd love you help you, Dean, really I would, but as the one that makes the rules, I can't."

"_You_ make the rules?" Dean said doubtfully.

"Name's Crowley. And I'm King of the Crossroads. Now, like I say, I'd love to help you, but I can't."

Dean's jaw clenched. "Why not?"

Crowley sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Because I may be king, but I have a boss like anyone else, and my boss is a badass. She's got Sam right where she wants him."

Dean knew as soon as Crowley mentioned a _she_ who he was talking about. It was the same demon bitch that had held his contract. It was the same demon bitch that had summoned the Hellhound that had torn him apart. It was Lilith.

Crowley nodded. "I see you know who I mean. Well, she has Sam exactly where she wants him, and as for you…" He shrugged. "Your work there is done."

Dean stiffened at the reminder of what he'd become down there. It had only been a matter of days compared to the decades he'd spent under the knife, but the fact he'd turned on the souls around him and become their torturer was a point of deepest shame to him.

"So you see, I can't help, and neither can any other demon." Crowley said. "I suggest you get back to life as best you can and try to forget what happened."

"You think I should forget my brother?" Dean asked through gritted teeth.

Crowley shook his head slowly. "No, I think you should forget just how good that blade felt in your hand and try to get back to life as you knew it. Your brother is gone, and while your work down _there_ is done, there's still plenty for you to do here. People to save and all that."

Dean turned away and walked back towards the car. On the crest of the horizon, the sun made an appearance, and the darkness of their crossroads was washed away. He turned back, and saw the demon was gone.

He hadn't achieved what he'd come to do, but if the demon was telling the truth, there was no way to do that now.

Sam was gone and he wasn't coming back.

* * *

He drove for hours, aimlessly following the back roads and highways. His teeth were gritted against the pain overwhelming his heart and head. His eyes constantly moved to the seat his brother should have been sitting in. Every time his eyes found the space his brother should be occupying, another tear fell. He thought that he should have exhausted the supply, but they kept on coming.

Eventually, he moved from deepest desperation onto anger. He was angry at everyone, Bobby for not keeping an eye on Sam, Ellen and Jo for not stopping him when they knew what he was doing, and himself for dragging Sam back into the hunting life in the first place. If Dean had left him to live his life at Stanford, none of this would have happened. He wished he could be angry at Sam, that would make the heart-wrenching pain easier to bear, but he couldn't, not when Sam had done it to save him.

The sun was high in the sky, reflecting of the polished hood of the car, when Dean came to a stop outside a small bar in Red Oak. From the exterior it looked like a dive—clapboard walls faded to a dull grey that gave no hint of the color they had once been, a flickering _Bud Light_ sign and grimy windows—and when he stepped inside he saw it was worse that he thought. The floors may as well have been coated with sawdust. It was perfect however. It would have good liquor, cheap, and he wouldn't be fighting a mass of people to get to the bar. In fact, the only patrons seemed to be a couple of elderly men sitting in a corner, nursing their tankards and a young man at the bar knocking back shots. Dean eyed him and wondered what had him getting soused before noon. Whatever his sob story was, Dean was sure he had it beat.

He ambled up to the bar and sank down onto a decrepit looking stool. He wondered whether it would hold his weight, but falling on his ass wouldn't be the worst thing to happen to him that day.

There was no bartender in sight, so he slammed his hand down on the bar and shouted, "Service!"

A heavyset man ambled out from a door behind the bar and scowled at Dean. "Yes," he said belligerently.

"Whiskey," Dean said, pointing to the rack of bottles behind the bar. "Keep them coming."

The man eyed him, perhaps wondering whether Dean's rudeness meant he could refuse to serve him. Dean rooted through his back pocket and pulled out the roll of bills Bobby had lent him. The idea had been that he could buy Sam a beer when he tracked him down, but that idea had gone to crap like the rest of Dean's plans had.

The man looked at the rolls of bills and then turned to get Dean's drink. Suddenly, he spun around and asked, "Does anyone else hear that?"

Dean didn't have time or patience for the man's bullshit, but then he heard it too. A high-pitched whining sound that drilled through Dean's head. He put his hands up to cover his ears, but it didn't block the sound. His eyes squeezed shut and he grimaced. Then through the whining sound came the crashes of breaking glass. Dean felt sharp pains erupt over his hands and face, and he squeezed his eyes shut tighter. The scent of alcohol suddenly became a lot stronger.

As fast as it had come, the sound ended. Dean opened his eyes cautiously and surveyed the damage around him. There was broken glass everywhere. The potent smell of alcohol was explained, as the bottles of alcohol that had lined the back of the bar all seemed to have smashed, spilling their contents. Dean got to his feet and brushed the shards of glass from his shirt.

"What the hell was that?" one of the old men in the corner asked.

"I've be damned if I know," the bartender answered. He turned and caught sight of his mangled stock. "Awww, hell."

Dean thought it was time for him to make a quick exit. He grabbed his roll of bills from the bar and made for the door. Unnoticed by the others in the bar, they were too busy discussing what had happened, he snuck out the door and climbed into the car.

He drove a few blocks before pulling over at the side of the road to examine his injuries. Small shards of glass were imbedded in his face and the backs of his hands. Painstakingly, he pulled each shard out and tossed it out of the window. When he was finished, his face and hands were dotted with small wounds that looked like shaving nicks. They hurt, but he didn't much care. Niggling cuts were the least of his worries. Given what had happened at the bar, he thought he had far more pressing concerns to be dealing with. Like whatever the hell had just happened.

* * *

He pulled the car to a stop beside Bobby's Chevelle in front of the bar and took a deep breath. He was coming back a failure, and the worst part was that the people inside wouldn't even care. If anything, they would be relieved that he had failed. They cared about Sam, he knew that, and they were wrecked by his death, but to them what Sam had done was a great act of sacrifice that should be honored not cancelled out by another deal.

He draped himself over the steering wheel, not knowing that he was exactly imitating what his brother had done only a matter of days earlier. He was devastated by his failure, whereas Sam had been exultant at his success.

It took him a long time to marshal himself to go back into the bar because he knew there was a hard task ahead of him. Sam couldn't be left lying on that bed, he needed tending to, and Dean knew that was going to incite an argument. He couldn't burn Sam. He just couldn't. It might have been what he wanted, it might have been a hunter's honor, but Dean couldn't bear to set light to his corpse and watch it burn.

With heavy footsteps and a heavy heart, Dean walked back to the bar. He saw a sign had been tacked onto the door, saying: **c****_losed for family emergency._**Dean was pleased to see the sign. He didn't want to deal with other hunters at the moment. He didn't particularly want to deal with anyone, Bobby, Ellen and Jo included, but he would have to for a little longer. He needed their help.

When he stepped inside, he saw that Bobby and Jo were seated at the bar nursing mugs of coffee, but Ellen was nowhere in sight.

Bobby stood as he came in and started towards Dean. "What the hell happened to you?"

"Long story," Dean said, scrubbing a hand over his wounded face and wincing. "Where's Ellen?"

"She's with Sam," Jo said.

Dean felt anger rise within him. If she had started… If he was burning… Dean would never forgive her.

"She's just sitting with him," Bobby said in a hollow tone. "No one's touched him."

Dean breathed an audible sigh of relief and made for Sam's room. He stopped at the door, and turned back to face Bobby. "I need a… coffin, for Sammy."

"Dean," Jo said softly. "He wanted to be burned."

Dean shook his head. "I don't… I can't do it, Jo. He's my little brother. I can't burn him."

Bobby stared into his eyes, testing his resolve, and then he nodded. "I'll take care of it."

Ellen was sitting in the chair beside the bed. She was silent, just staring down at Sam. When Dean entered, she got to her feet and threw her arms around him. Dean felt tears burn at his eyes again, but he wouldn't let them fall. The time for tears had come and gone. He had to be strong now.

She leaned back and cupped his cheeks in her hands. "It didn't work."

Dean closed his eyes and shook his head. "They won't deal with me."

"I'm so sorry, sweetie," she said, staring into his eyes. "I know how much you wanted it."

Dean looked down at his brother. "Thanks for sitting with him."

"He's family," she said simply. "What are you going to do now?"

"I'm going to bury him," he said then raised a hand, forestalling her protests. "I know it's not what he wanted, but I can't do it any other way. I have to leave the option there. I'm not giving up hope."

"Okay. You want some help? There's a… The stuff you'll need's in the shed."

Dean shook his head. He was going to do this alone. He would bury his brother. It was the last act of love he could carry out for Sam, seeing him properly taken care of.

"I'll do it."

* * *

**Thank you so much to everyone that is reading this story. The response had been overwhelming. Extra hugs and cookies to those of you that are reviewing. I get insanely excited whenever I get an email saying one of you has taken a minute to share your thoughts. This story is something of an experiment for me. Not only am I writing a Dean-Verse but also, I am writing without the safety net of a pre-reader, so if it's crap, you guys are the first people that know about it. **

**CoM x **


	6. Chapter 6

**Not sure where I went wrong with the last couple of chapters, but I seem to have lost half my readers. I am extra thankful for those of you that remain. I write first and foremost for myself, but it's always nice to know other people are enjoying my hard work. **

**Thanks go to SandraEngstrom1, my lovely beta. She is an absolute star.**

* * *

**Chapter Six**

After Dean laid the last clod of earth down over his brother grave, he went into the bar and picked up a bottle of cheap whiskey. He carried it into his brother's room and sat down on the chair beside the bed. There, he drank his way through the bottle and then fell asleep. He slept for twelve hours, waking the next morning with a pounding head and heavy heart.

He made his way into the kitchen and saw Ellen and Bobby sitting at the table. Ellen got to her feet as he came in and moved to the counter to pour him a mug of coffee. She set it down in front of him, laid a hand on his shoulder for a moment, and then sat down again.

"Jo's gone," she said. "There's a werewolf in Maryland, and she's gone to do some recon before the full moon. She sends her love and says to call if there is anything… you know."

Dean nodded and turned his attention to his coffee. Picking up a spoon from the center of the table, he swirled it, creating a miniature whirlpool. He took his coffee black, like a man, as his father had said, but Sam had always gone for the frou-frou lattes and macchiatos. Dean used to tease him about it… before.

"You want to talk about what happened to your face?" Bobby asked.

Dean's head jerked up and he put a finger to his cheek, feeling one of the cuts. In the face of everything else that had happened, Dean had almost forgotten about what had happened in the bar. "Yeah, I guess…" He drew a deep breath and told them everything about his visit to the bar and what had happened there. "It was like this force blew through the place," he finished.

Bobby tugged at his cap, looking thoughtful. "You think something's after you?"

Dean nodded. "Something powerful. And that's not all. Where I was planted, when I got out, it looked like a nuke had gone off, blackened earth and trees all knocked down."

"What are you thinking?" Ellen asked.

"Bad mojo brought me out. What if something else hitched a ride?"

Bobby sighed out a heavy breath. "Like a demon?"

"Like a _badass_ demon," Dean said. "It's not just the bar and the grave, though they're weird enough. Ever since I got back, I've had this feeling, like something's happening. Something more than Sammy."

"It never does to ignore something like that," Ellen said. "But I don't even know where to start. I guess we could check for demon signs, but"—she shrugged—"it's a big ass country and there's no knowing which demon it could be. Sam filled me in on your last year and that Lilith character; we could follow the signs to her and get our asses blasted."

Dean's lips curved into a mockery of a smile. "Let her try."

"You suddenly superhuman?" Bobby asked sarcastically.

"No, but I've got nothing left to lose. If she wants me, she can come take me."

For a moment, Dean thought Bobby might actually punch him. His face reddened and he breathed heavily. Then he seemed to marshal himself, and when he spoke, it was in a low growl. "Your brother is dead because he saved you. If you go after Lilith now on some suicide mission, you'll be spitting all over what Sam did. God knows it hurts, but death isn't an easy answer for this, Dean. We'll find a way to kill Lilith, and we'll do it for Sam, but not till we're armed and ready."

"Well, what do you suggest?" he asked.

Bobby smiled grimly. "I've got a couple of contacts. If something hitched a ride with you, they'll know about it. Give me a while to make some phone calls, and then we'll be ready to get some answers."

Having no better plan in mind, Dean nodded and sipped at his coffee. "Whatever you do, work fast, Bobby. I'm not sitting around here waiting for more people to die because of me."

* * *

Bobby pulled the car over at the side of the road on an attractive suburban street. The houses all around were well kept, with flourishing gardens and neat paintwork. It was the sort of place Sam would have liked to live in as a kid, Dean thought. He'd always been jealous of the other kids with their apple pie lives.

Pushing aside upsetting thoughts of his brother for what felt like the hundredth time that day, Dean climbed out of the car and followed Bobby up the steps to the front door. Bobby knocked and Dean saw a figure approaching the door through the filmy curtain. A moment later, the door swung open and a woman came into view. She had dark, wavy hair and alluring hazel eyes.

She threw her arms around Bobby and hugged him tight, almost lifting him into the air. "Bobby!" she said excitedly, then she turned to Dean and her expression became somber. "I'm sorry about your brother."

"Bobby told you," Dean said.

Bobby shook his head. "No. Dean, this is Pamela Barnes, best damn psychic in the state."

She held out a hand and Dean shook it.

"Dean Winchester. Out of the fire and back in the frying pan, huh? Makes you a rare individual."

Dean shrugged. "If you say so."

She smiled at him sadly. "Come on in."

They followed her into the house and she closed the door behind them.

"So, you hear anything?" Bobby asked.

"Well, I Ouija'd my way through a dozen spirits. No one seems to know who followed your boy out."

"But something did?" Dean asked.

"I'm not sure," she said. "The spirits are all aquiver. Something big is coming down on us all, and they're twitchy."

"So what's next?" Bobby asked.

"A séance I think. See if we can nail down a name for what's coming."

A frown creased Bobby's brow. "You're not gonna summon the damn thing here."

"No. I just want to get a sneak peek at it. Like a crystal ball without the crystal."

She led them into a small room with a polished wooden table in the center of the room. She rooted through a cupboard and pulled out a black cloth covered with symbols and a handful of candles. Dean watched as she laid the cloth over the table and set up the candles while Bobby closed the drapes.

"You're gonna need to sit down," she said softly, "and we need to hold hands."

Dean sat and linked hands with Bobby and Pamela. He felt a little stupid doing it, as if they were children playing with things best left alone. Closing his eyes, he tried to ignore his self-consciousness and focus on what was happening. He needed a name for what had followed him out.

"Okay," Pamela said. "Everyone keep an open mind and is prepared to run like hell."

"You sure about this, Pamela?" Bobby asked.

"We want to find the big bad, right?"

Dean had no arguments. Safe or not this would hopefully track down whatever had hitched a ride with him back to earth. It was his responsibility to take care of it, since it was his fault the thing had come along in the first place.

Pamela began to chant and Dean felt the tension in the room ratchet up a notch. "I invoke, conjure, and command you, appear unto me before this circle. I invoke, conjure, and command you, appear unto me before this circle."

In the corner, the television turned on to blare white noise at them.

"I invoke, conjure, and command... Castiel? No. Sorry, Castiel, I don't scare easy."

"Castiel?" Dean asked. The word meant nothing to him, he'd never heard it before, but if this was the thing that had chased him out, the name was about to become a lot more important.

"Its name. It's whispering to me, warning me to turn back."

The whining Dean had heard in the bar came back, and the table began to shake.

"I conjure and command you, show me your face," Pamela chanted. "I conjure and command you—"

Dean felt some sense of impending doom settle over him, as if things were about to get a lot worse. He yanked his hand out of Pamela and Bobby's grip and stood, knocking the chair back to the floor. He was panting, but he didn't know why; he just had the feeling they had dodged a bullet.

He shook his head. "We are not trying that again!"

"Dean," Bobby said gently.

"No, Bobby. We have a name, that's all we need. Whatever just happened, it was bad mojo, and we're better off away from it."

Pamela breathed out a heavy breath. "I hate to say it, but I think he's right." She ran a hand through her hair. "Shame, that was a hell of a buzz."

"I'll wait in the car," Dean said. He felt like his skin was crawling, he wanted to get out of that place. Castiel, whoever he was, seemed too close inside that dull room.

He walked through the hall to the front door. As his hand rested on the handle, Pamela called out to him. "Dean."

He turned and saw her standing in the doorway. "Yeah."

"Missouri sent me a message for you."

"How do you know about…?" Dean hadn't seen or thought of Missouri Mosely in what felt like a lifetime.

Pamela touched her temple. "Psychic, remember? She says it's about time you came home for a visit."

"I'll take that under advisement," he said, turning the handle and stepping out into the bright sunlight.

When Bobby came out, ten minutes later, Dean was sitting back in his seat with his eyes closed.

"You okay?" Bobby asked.

Dean glared at him balefully. "What do you think?"

"Stupid question," Bobby admitted. "Don't mind Pamela. She's a good girl, just a little excitable."

"She's fine. I just didn't like that place. It felt like the big bad was too close."

"Castiel, huh."

Dean nodded. "Yeah, Castiel."

"You want to head back to Ellen's?"

Dean considered. They were only in Des Moines, a few hours out of Lincoln, but he wasn't in the mood to go back to the bar. The pain of his brother's absence was more acutely felt there, so close to his resting place. "Nah, let's get a room for the night. We can head back tomorrow."

Bobby nodded his agreement and started the engine. "I know a place."

* * *

When Bobby said he knew a place, Dean assumed he meant another crappy motel like the ones he'd spent his life in, but he pulled them to a stop outside a hotel with high, vaulted windows and a shining front door. Bobby climbed out and Dean felt the weight of the car shift under him. He climbed out and looked at Bobby over the top of the car. "Bit flash, isn't it?"

Bobby looked away. "I've got something put by. Besides, I thought we could do with something a little nicer for a change."

Dean understood what he was trying to say, and while he appreciated it, no amount of fancy hotels were going to make him feel any better about his lot in life.

"We can go somewhere else," Bobby said.

Dean was past caring. "It's fine."

He followed Bobby into the lobby and waited while Bobby booked two rooms for them. Bobby chatted with the woman behind the desk as if it was any other day. It pissed Dean off. How was Bobby able to act like that in the face of everything that had happened? Sam was dead. How could Bobby go on like it was nothing? And then Bobby turned away, and Dean saw the lines of sadness reappear on Bobby's face, as if someone had turned a screw and slackened everything slightly. Whatever it was in Bobby that made it possible for him turn his grief on and off like that, Dean wanted it too. He had a feeling he was going to need it in years to come if he had to keep living on this rock.

The elevator dinged, bringing Dean out of his thoughts, and he filed in after Bobby.

Bobby opened his mouth a couple of times, as if he was going to say something, but he clicked it shut again each time and remained silent. Dean was glad of it.

When he got to his room, Bobby handed him a keycard and told him he was going to get them some food. Dean grunted an acknowledgement and dropped his bag down onto the huge bed in the center of the room. When he was alone, he sat on the edge of the bed, and bowed forward, twisting his fingers in his short hair. His mind was flickering from what had happened at Pamela's, to Sam, to this Castiel he had to find, and back to Sam again. Sam dead. Sam in Hell. Sam lying on that damned bed, pale and waxy in death.

"Dammit!" he bellowed, jerking upright and pacing the room.

What was he supposed to do now? He knew what he wanted, death, but that would be—as Bobby had said—an insult to what Sam had done for him. He couldn't die, but he couldn't live either. He was in an impossible situation. He could either choose what he wanted or what Sam would want. He had given Sam what he needed all his life, maybe not always what he wanted but what he needed. Surely it was his time to be selfish.

He shook his head as the thoughts battered at his mind. He could be selfish, but not yet. He had responsibilities. He had brought this Castiel out with him apparently, so he had to be the one to take him down. After that was taken care of, he would be free to do what he wanted. Resolved in his decision, he sat down on the bed again and waited for Bobby to get back.

He had been waiting only a matter of minutes before the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end and he heard a very faint whining sound.

"Aw, hell," he groaned.

As he knew it would, the sound grew louder and more piercing, until it was so loud he thought it was drill through his brain, driving him insane. Both hands came up to cover his ears, to try to protect him from the noise. The windows smashed, blasting him with shards of broken glass, and a huge mirror on the wall fragmented and crashed to the ground.

The sound reached a peak and Dean dropped to his knees, crying out in pain.

Suddenly, the door flew open and Bobby raced in. "Dean!"

The noise cut off and Dean was left panting on the ground. Bobby squatted beside him and laid a hand on his arm. "Are you okay?"

Dean nodded mutely, slowly pulling his hands away from his ears.

"What the hell was that?" Bobby asked.

Dean eased himself to his feet, wary of the broken glass spread about the place. "I think that was Castiel." He brushed the glass off his duffel and hefted it over his shoulder. "C'mon. We've got to get out of here. We've got things to do."

"We do?"

"Yeah, we're summoning that Castiel dick."

Bobby's eyes bugged out. "You can't be serious!"

"As a heart attack," Dean said solemnly.

"Dean, we don't know what it is. It could be a demon. It could be anything."

"That's why we've got to be ready for anything. We've got the knife; you've got an arsenal in the trunk..."

"This is a bad idea."

"Yeah, I couldn't agree more, but what other choice do we have?"

"We could choose life. Dean, I know you're hurting, I am too, but you can't go into this as a suicide mission."

Dean shrugged. "You do what you want, Bobby. I'm summoning this thing and that's that. Come with, or stay here and explain the damage, your choice."

Bobby sighed and looked around the destroyed room. "Well, I never was much one for explaining things."

Dean smiled grimly, pleased that Bobby had his back.

* * *

Dean looked around the cavernous room, taking in the spray painted sigils and signs Bobby had covered the walls with. There were some he recognized from years on the job but others that were completely new to him.

"That's a hell of an art project you've got going there."

Bobby finished painting in the last of the sigil he was working on and straightened. "Traps and talismans from every faith on the globe. How you doing?"

Dean gestured to the table in front of him; he had every weapon he could think of in front of him. "Stakes, iron, silver, salt, knife. I mean, we're pretty much set to catch and kill anything I've ever heard of."

"This is still a bad idea."

Dean sighed. "Yeah, Bobby, I heard you the first ten times."

"Well I hate to be a bore, but are you sure you've thought this through?"

Dean closed his eyes and willed his voice to sound steady. "This isn't a suicide mission, Bobby. If it was, I wouldn't drag you into it. I am just doing what needs to be done. This Castiel is bad news, and I need to take care of it. You don't have to stay."

Bobby scoffed. "Like I'd leave you to fight this alone." He moved to the other table where they had set out the ingredients for the summoning spell. Taking a pinch of power, he tossed it into the large bowl that was already filled with everything they would need. The bowl began to smoke and Bobby began to chant Latin.

There was nothing for a long moment but the sound of Bobby's chanting, and then the roof panels began to shake as if caught in a high wind. The lights above them blew out and sparks rained down to the floor.

Dean looked across the room in time to see the door creaking open. He braced himself, wondering what fugly was about to come through. When he caught sight of their visitor, it was not what Dean was expecting.

It was a man, or at least it looked like a man, with dark hair and a scruff of stubble. He was wearing a black suit and beige trenchcoat.

Dean grabbed a shotgun from the table, and he saw Bobby do the same. As one, they raised their guns and pulled the triggers. The bullets hit the man, Dean saw it, but they didn't even slow him down. He kept on coming at them, looking supremely indifferent to the fact they were doing all they could to kill him.

Dean grabbed Ruby's knife from the table and waited for the man to step into his sights. The man came closer, stepping between Dean and Bobby.

"Who are you?" Dean asked.

"My name is Castiel."

Dean drew his arm back and plunged the knife into the centre of the man's chest. He stepped back, triumphant at the killing blow, but the man merely smiled ruefully and gripped the hilt of the knife. With a sickening squelching sound, he pulled the blade out and let it drop to the floor.

Behind him, Bobby raised a tire iron and swung it through the air in a move that should have turned the man's brains to jelly, but before Bobby could land the blow, the man reached behind him and caught the iron and used it to drag Bobby around. With an expression of complete indifference, he pressed two fingers to Bobby's temple, and Bobby crumpled to the ground.

"Bobby!" Dean shouted.

"We need to talk, Dean," the man said. "Alone."

Dean disregarded the man and crouched over Bobby, pressing his fingers to the older man's neck. For a second he had a very real fear that he was dead, but he felt the pounding of life against his fingertips. He glared up at the man.

"Your friend's alive."

"Who are you?"

"Castiel."

"Yeah, I heard that much, I mean _what_ are you?"

"I'm an Angel of the Lord."

Dean straightened. "Get the hell out of here. There's no such thing."

This… creature, whatever he was, was talking to the wrong brother. Sam would have swallowed this crap up and loved it. e'He'He'd believed in angels and God and all the rest of it. Dean wasn't so stupid.

"This is your problem, Dean. You have no faith."

Dean was struggling to come up with a witty comeback when lightning flashed across the room and the man straightened. In the flashes of light, Dean saw huge, black, shadowy wings appeared on the wall. Angel's wings. He took an involuntary step back.

"Now, you see. I _am _an angel."

"And you were in Hell?" Dean asked.

The man frowned. "Why would you think that?"

Dean huffed. "Maybe because I get sprung from the pit and you appear the same day."

The man sighed heavily. "I can see why you would think that, given your history of misfortune, but no. I was not in Hell. In fact, I was the one who was going to save you."

"What do you mean?"

"I was chosen to be the one to pull you from perdition. There was to be an incursion of angels. We were going to save you, Dean."

Dean raised a shaky hand. "You're telling me you were going to pull me out?"

The man nodded. "It was only a matter of time. A human month was needed to prepare the host for the mission. You were to be saved. But your brother…"

"Sam," Dean said. "Sammy made the deal." The thought that Sam was gone was unbearable, but the thought he had died and gone there for no reason was so much worse. A month. That was nothing, a mere decade of Hell time. If he had just waited…

Dean swallowed down his misery, locking it away until he could be free to vent it alone, and asked, "And why would an angel rescue me from Hell?"

"Good things do happen, Dean."

"Not in my experience. Not in my family."

"What's the matter? You don't think you deserve to be saved?"

"I don't," he said firmly. Then a bright, shining hope burgeoned through him. Here was the answer. He couldn't make a deal with demons, but maybe he could with an angel. "I don't deserve to be saved, but Sammy does. You're an angel, you can save him."

The man shook his head somberly. "I cannot do that."

Dean grabbed the man's lapels and yanked at him. "Save him!" he bellowed. "You said you were going to do it for me, now do it for him. Sam deserves to be saved. He believes in God and angels and all that crap. He always has. Now, save him!"

"I cannot," the man said. "I need orders, and no orders have been issued for me."

"That's because they don't understand," Dean said. "Maybe they don't know."

The man unclenched Dean's fingers from his jacket as easily as breaking a child's grasp. He stepped back and brushed down his coat. "Your brother's situation is known to us."

"You know!" Dean snarled. "You know he's in Hell, burning in the fires, because of me."

"Sam made a great sacrifice to save you."

Dean waved away the words. He knew just how great a sacrifice his brother had made. He had lived it. That was what was so screwed up; it was supposed to be his last sacrifice, not his brother's.

"Why would you do it for me when you won't do it for Sam?" Dean asked desolately.

The man straightened and his deep voice echoed off the walls. "Because God commanded it. Because we have work for you."

"Screw you and your God!" Dean shouted. "You want me to work for you when you won't do one simple thing for someone that actually deserves it!"

"This is bigger than you and your brother," the man said. "The world is as risk of ending."

Dean shook his head and words that he once spoke to Bobby echoed in his mind. '_You don't think I've given enough? You don't think I've paid enough?' _ He had given more, paid more, and lost more than he thought possible since that day and his response was the same as it had been then.

"Let it end."

* * *

**So… Castiel is here. Who's happy to see him? *raises hand* I have been looking forward to bringing him into the story since the plot idea for this story came to me. There was some repetition in this chapter from canon events, and that will happen again. Though Sam saved Dean from Hell, he wasn't in time to stop his breaking the first seal, so Lilith's plans are steamrolling ahead. As the seals break, we will see some other events from canon reoccurring. I have tried to make these scenes as original as possible, adding my own twist, but only time and reading will show if I did a half decent job of it. **

**For those of you that are reviewing, you have my utmost gratitude. I absolutely love reading your thoughts and love chatting with those of you that have questions. If there is anything you want to know about the story, please ask. I love talking about Going It Alone with anyone that is prepared to listen. **

**Till next time… **

**CoM xxx **


	7. Chapter 7

**Good news: I am 25k in to the sequel for Going It Alone — it's my NaNoWriMo project this year — so barring extreme writer's block, it will be written. **

**Thanks, as always, go to SandraEngstrom1 for being the bestest beta and friend a girl could ask for. This chapters are — hopefully — made readable thanks to her. **

* * *

**Chapter Seven**

Dean groaned and raked his hands through his hair. "I'm telling you, Bobby, I don't care what he said, he was _not_ an angel."

Bobby crossed his arms over his chest. "Fine. You seem to be all knowing now, so what was he?"

"A demon?"

"Sure, it was a demon, a demon that was able to knock me out with a little fingers to the forehead move and a demon that's immune to salt rounds, devil's traps and that zippy knife."

Ellen set a cup of coffee in front of each of them and rested a hand on Dean's shoulder. Dean wasn't overly comfortable with the contact, he wasn't as tactile as Sam, but it seemed to make her happy so he didn't complain. They were grouped in Ellen's small kitchen. The light was streaming through the window and the air smelled of coffee. It was a comfortable room, but Dean felt like an intruder. This was a room for a family, and no matter what Ellen said, Dean wasn't family. His family was dead.

After their encounter with Castiel they'd come back to Ellen's for the night. Dean had sacked down in Sam's room and crashed for a few hours. When he'd woken, Ellen was out preparing the bar for opening and Bobby was ready to start the argument he'd started in the car the night before.

"Why don't you want it to be an angel, sweetie," Ellen asked softly.

"I'm not saying I don't want it to be an angel. It's just… that guy said he was supposed to pull me out of the pit. Why? Why would angels—or God for that matter—care about me? I'm just an ordinary guy."

"An ordinary guy that saved a whole lotta lives," Bobby said.

"And why," Dean said, ignoring Bobby, "would they let Sam make that deal knowing they were saving me anyway. They're angels; they should be all knowing, right? It just doesn't make sense."

"Maybe they didn't know," Bobby said. "They might not be all-knowing. We don't know anything about them other than the fact they don't look like the Raphael version of themselves. That guy looked like an ordinary Joe."

Dean scoffed. "Yeah, an ordinary tax accountant."

Bobby nodded thoughtfully. "Maybe that's exactly who It was really."

"You telling me we got jumped by a bean counter?"

Bobby sighed. "No, I'm thinking the guy was a meat suit. The angel was what was inside."

"So now we've got angels jumping people's bones, too? Like we don't have enough fugly things out ruining lives."

Bobby shrugged. "I don't know. It's just a theory. I don't have any of my books with me, so I can't exactly look this stuff up."

Dean clapped his hands together. "That's it then. We've got to go back to your place."

He had been looking for an excuse to leave since he had buried Sam. He didn't want to be here anymore. Soon, the bar would be crawling with hunters, some that Dean knew, and they were sure to be asking about Sam. He didn't think he could stand explaining what had happened. He didn't want the sympathy from people that didn't really know him or Sam. Pamela's regret had been hard enough to bear.

"I think he's right," Ellen said. "You know you're always welcome here, but I don't have anything resembling a library."

Dean got to his feet, dislodging Ellen's hand in the process, and grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair. He took one look at the back door, blocking the sight of Sam's grave, and nodded to Ellen. "I'll see you."

She didn't let him get off that easy; she caught him in a hug that made his breath huff out. "Make sure you come back soon."

Dean relaxed into her embrace for a moment and nodded. "You know I will."

She released him and he pulled his jacket on. "I'll see you back at the house, Bobby."

"Be right behind ya," Bobby said.

Dean walked through the empty bar and out the front door. He wasn't sure he would have been able to keep going had he had to pass his brother's grave. He didn't want to leave him here alone. Ellen would be here, but without Dean, Sam was alone.

He climbed into the car and started the engine. He reversed out of the spot he had parked in and angled the car for the open road. Just as he started out, another car passed him on the way into the parking lot. It was a car he recognized, belonging to a hunter named Barrett. Dean had left just in time.

* * *

Dean was almost at Sioux City when his phone rang. For a second, a glorious second, he thought it was Sam calling him. His moment of exhilaration burst like a soap bubble as he saw the name flashing across the screen and reality caught up with him. Fighting down his disappointment, he wedged the phone between his chin and shoulder.

"Bobby?"

"Where are you?"

"Just outside Sioux City," Dean said.

"Turn around and head for Cherokee."

"Why?"

"I've got a friend, another hunter, called Olivia Lowry. I've been calling around for anyone that's heard of angels and she's not picking up."

"You want me to drive an hour because your friend is in the shower?" Dean asked irritably.

He heard Bobby's deep inhale and when he spoke in was in a careful measured tone. "I want you to drive an hour because I think she's in trouble. She's the fourth hunter that I've called that's not picking up. She just happened to be the closest to you. I want you to check it out while I head into Lexington to check on Bates."

Dean sighed. "Okay. Where's this chick based?"

Bobby reeled off an address and ended the call.

Dean turned the car and headed east for Cherokee.

The address wasn't what he was expecting from one of Bobby's hunter friends. Hunters usually liked space around them, but this was a part of an apartment complex. Not only unusual, it would make getting in more complicated. The main door had a security key pass that looked professional. Dean wouldn't be able to pick it.

He spotted a small store at the end of the street and an idea occurred to him. He climbed out of the car and walked down the street.

A bell tinkled overhead as he opened the florist's door and he was greeted by a matronly looking woman wearing a frilled apron and floral dress. "How may I help you?" she asked sweetly.

Dean pulled out his roll of bills and counted them quickly. "I need the nicest bouquet I can get for fifty bucks."

"Trouble with the wife?" the woman asked with a smile.

"Something like that."

"Flowers are a great first step," the woman said. "But you might want to pair them with a smile."

He wondered what she would say if he explained why smiling wasn't on his list of priorities. _"Gee, sorry, lady. I'm just having a bad week. You see, I had this brother that died. I know, I know, what a tragedy. I was able to fix it though. I made a deal with a demon and saved his life. I went to Hell, which sucked, but I was okay with it. Then my dumbass brother made a deal of his own. He's rotting in Hell now, and I'm stuck here without a thing to help him. Oh, and apparently angels are real, too. So, you see, I'm not really in the mood to smile right now."_

Shaking his head, Dean forced his lips into a smile that felt more like a grimace.

She eyed him appraisingly. "It's a start I guess. Now, what flowers does your wife like?"

Dean looked around at the flowers on display and realized he couldn't name a single one of them. Any knowledge he might have of floral displays—not that he would admit to having any—deserted him.

"Um… pink ones," he said lamely.

She nodded and bustled around, picking up blooms and laying them on the counter. She chattered as she worked, and Dean caught the words lilies, roses and ferns, but his attention was directed elsewhere. Behind the counter was an array of cards to go with the flowers. The more somber of them bore phrases like _In loving memory _and _In your time of need._ They were for funerals. Sam hadn't had much of a funeral. He hadn't even had the hunter's funeral he wanted. He'd just been buried behind a rundown bar in Nebraska with a rough wooden cross marking the place. It wasn't what Dean wanted for him, but it was the best he could do in the circumstances.

"Here you… Are you okay?"

Dean looked up at the woman and saw she was eying him with concern. His dark thoughts must have translated to his expression.

"I'm fine," he said. "Is it done?"

She nodded. "Now, if you'd like to pick out a card."

"I don't need a card," he said, holding out his roll of bills.

"You're so right," she said with an approving nod. "Speak from the heart. That will win her over."

He took the bouquet and made his way to the door. She called out a goodbye after him, and he grunted in response.

Out on the street, Dean started to rethink his plan. There were a whole lot of flowers in his arms, and he felt stupid. He had blown the last of his cash on these though, so he wasn't going to waste them. He went back to the car and stood leaning against the door with the flowers in his arms.

Thankfully, he only had to wait ten minutes before he saw a woman coming up the street with keys swinging on her finger. She stopped at the apartment and Dean jogged across the street. As she caught sight of him, she fumbled her keys. "Can I help you?"

Dean dug deep for his most charming smile and said, "I was hoping you could let me in. I went on a date with Olivia Lowry in 22c last night, and I want to leave these for her."

He held his breath as he waited for the woman's reaction, privately hoping this wasn't in fact Olivia. That would take some explaining.

"I didn't know Olivia was dating again," the woman said. "Good for her. And with such a charming man, too."

Dean looked down, feigning embarrassment. "I don't know about that."

"Come on in," she said swinging the door open.

Thanking his rarely lucky stars, Dean followed her into a plush hall with thick carpets. At one wall was a bank of boxes for mail. The woman who'd let him in collected her mail, and then began ripping the seals on the envelopes. Dean used her distraction to make for the elevator and press the button for the third floor. He figured he'd start there—C meaning three—and work his way through the building if he couldn't find the right apartment.

He found Olivia's apartment at the end of a hall, and yet again, his luck was in. Hers was the last on the hall and around a corner so he could squat down and get to work on the lock without anyone watching him. It'd been a while since he'd picked a lock and it took a few tries before the tumblers clicked into place

He knew as soon as he opened the door that something was terribly wrong, as the stench of coppery blood was thick in the air. When he entered, he had to stop a moment and control his gag reflex. He had seen a lot of gore in his life, he'd been the recipient of some grisly injuries, but he'd not seen _this_ before. It looked like something had ripped into Olivia's chest with a blunt object and pulled out her heart. It wasn't the work of a werewolf; there were no gore marks. It was as someone had shoved a fist into her chest. Werewolves didn't do that.

There was a salt line in the doorway in front of her. He stepped over it carefully to get a better look. She would once have been pretty with her dark hair and full lips, but now her hair was strewn around her head like a halo and her lips were pulled back in a grimace of pain.

He shook his head. "I'm real sorry, Olivia."

He dropped the flowers he had brought down beside her, and turned on his heel and left.

When he got back to the car, he called Bobby, wondering how he was going to deliver this blow.

"She dead?" Bobby asked gruffly in lieu of a hello.

"Afraid so."

"Damn. Bates too."

"I'm sorry, Bobby," Dean said.

"Yeah, me too. I've got a couple more people to check in with. Meet me back at the house."

Dean hung up the phone and gunned the engine. First Sam, now his buddies Olivia and Bates, Dean wondered how much more Bobby would lose before the end.

* * *

Dean let himself into Bobby's and shrugged off his jacket. Tossing it on the back of a chair, he made for the library and picked up the almost empty bottle of whiskey from the desk. He didn't bother with a glass; he merely tilted his head back and took a long pull of the bottle. It burned his throat as it went down, and he gasped. He knew drinking in the middle of the day wasn't the most responsible behavior, especially not when he was supposed to be on a case, but he didn't much care. His brother was dead, surely that was a good excuse to throw the rulebook out the window.

In his mind's eye, Sam's disapproving face appeared. His brow was furrowed into the frown he had perfected as a child. John Winchester had called it 'The Face' _"Sorry, Sammy, the store was out of Lucky Charms." _Cue the face. As Sam had grown, so had the face. _'No, Sam, you can't join the football team. Were leaving town as soon as I finish this job.'_ Cue the face. Now Dean imagined that face directed at him and it almost broke his heart.

He put the bottle down and half walked half staggered into the bathroom under the weight of his guilt. He splashed cold water over his face, dispelling the vision of his brother, and looked up into the mirror. When he'd been in that fill up join in Illinois, he'd thought there was a darkness in his eyes that his brother might notice. The darkness was still there, and it had been deepened and added to by his loss. He scrubbed a hand over his face and muttered to himself, "I'm sorry, Sammy. I'm doing my best."

Suddenly, the temperature in the room seemed to drop by a few dozen degrees. His breath misted in front of him and the mirror he was staring into literally froze over. He wiped a hand over the glass and started as he caught sight of someone standing behind him, Henriksen. Though his clothes were tattered and torn, he looked exactly the same as they had the last time they'd met.

"Hi, Dean. It's been a while."

"Victor! Are you…? Did you…?" Dean stammered.

Seemingly in answer to his questions, Henriksen flickered.

A ghost then, Dean thought.

"I didn't survive... if that's what you're asking."

"I'm sorry."

"I know you are."

"Look, if we'd known Lilith was coming—"

"You wouldn't have left half a dozen innocent people in that police station to die in your place. You did this to me. It was your fault. She was after you, you and your brother, and I paid the price. You left us there to die!"

He grabbed Dean by the shoulders and threw him across the room. Dean landed heavily on the corner of the tub, feeling the impact on his tailbone. He reached for Dean again, and Dean noticed a mark on Henriksen's hand. It looked like a burn. Before he could move or try to resist, Henriksen had him flying though the air at the opposite wall. Henriksen gripped Dean's shoulders and rammed his head into the porcelain sink. Exquisite pain erupted in Dean's head, blurring his vision and making nausea roll in his stomach. Henriksen pulled Dean back, and prepared for another go when the blast of a shotgun ripped through the room and Henriksen was blown away in a spray of rock salt.

Bobby stood in the doorway with his sawn-off aimed into the center of the room. "You okay, Dean?"

"Yeah, just peachy."

He got to his feet, rubbing his injured tailbone and followed Bobby back into the library. He took a seat on the couch and Bobby sat on the edge of the desk.

"So, who was that?"

"Henriksen," Dean said. "The Fed that made catching me and Sam his whole bucket list. I got him killed back in Colorado."

Bobby scrubbed a hand over his face. "Yeah, I remember that, though I remember Lilith being the one that did the killing, not you."

Dean shrugged. "Just another to add to the list of people I killed."

Bobby looked at him and Dean had the impression he was seeing right through him. "You didn't get Sam killed, Dean," he said softly.

Dean raised his hands. "I really don't want to talk about it, Bobby."

Bobby huffed out a breath. "Fine. So, this Henriksen want something?"

"Other than beating my ass to a bloody pulp, I don't think so. He didn't say anything that would give the game away. What are you thinking?"

"Well, Bates, Jed and R.C all looked like they were preparing to take out ghosts when they were killed. They were loaded with salt rounds."

Dean nodded. "Yeah, your friend Olivia had a salt line laid down, too."

"Looks like the ghosts are the ones doing the killing, through why they'd do that."

Dean shrugged. "I don't know."

"Well, we better figure it out. Because given what just happened, it looks like you're next in line. I've got some books in the basement to hunt out. You should come with. There's something I want to show you."

Dean was sure whatever was in the basement was important to Bobby, but he couldn't seem to muster any enthusiasm. He followed Bobby through the hall and down some steps into the basement. There were stacks of boxes an old trunk against the wall, but Bobby bypassed them and made his way to a heavy metal door instead. He swung it open and Dean followed him into a large circular room. He looked around and let out a heavy breath in spite of himself. Spread across the walls and floor were pentagrams and devil's traps and sigils Dean didn't even have a name for. On the ceiling was a huge fan with a devil's trap in the vent. There were racks of weapons lining the walls and a desk with what looked like a CB radio on it.

"Solid iron. Completely coated in salt. One-hundred percent ghost-proof.," Bobby said proudly.

"You built a panic room."

Bobby shrugged self-deprecatingly. "I had a weekend off. Anyway," he fixed Dean with a glare, "you're going to stay down here while I go have myself a little research party. See if I can work out why the ghosts are all twitchy."

Dean raised an eyebrow. "I am?"

"Yes, you are. Like I said, it's ghost-proof, so if your buddy Henriksen comes back, he'll have to stand in the doorway and point."

"I'm not gonna—"

"Yes you are," Bobby said firmly.

Dean dropped down onto the edge of the cot at the side of the room and sighed. "Fine, but do me a favor. Bring the books down here and we can look together."

"Because you're such a research aficionado."

"Just do it, Bobby. Henrikson might be after me, but who's to say there's no one coming for you, too."

Bobby nodded his grudging acceptance. "Fine, I'll be right back." He disappeared through the door and Dean heard his heavy footsteps on the wooden steps. He planted his palms on his knees and scuffed his heels against the concrete floor. He felt like a child put in a timeout. He looked around the room and he had to admit to being impressed. He'd never thought about anything like this, not that he had anywhere to build one. Sam would have gotten a real kick out of the place.

Suddenly, Dean heard a strangled cry from up the stairs and a jangling as something metal hit the floor. He grabbed a gun from the rack then raced out of the room and up the stairs. On the floor in the middle of the library was an iron poker.

"Bobby!" he shouted, but there was no response.

He raced from room to room, shouting Bobby's name, but he saw no sign of him. Then, as his panic reached a new high, he felt the room suddenly grow colder.

"Come out, come out, whoever you are," Dean sang.

"Dean Winchester. Still so bossy."

Dean spun around and saw a young woman with mousy, shoulder-length hair and a pretty heart-shaped face. Dean was sure he knew her, but he couldn't think who she was.

"You don't recognize me?" she asked. "This is what I looked like before that demon cut off my hair and dressed me like a slut."

It was her voice that did it, hearing it a second time made the name come to him. She had changed. The last time he'd seen her, her hair had been lighter and her clothes wouldn't have looked out of place at Hooters. Now she was dressed more demurely.

"Meg?"

"Hi."

She stepped forward and Dean raised the gun.

"It's okay, I'm not a demon."

"You're the girl the demon possessed."

She nodded. "Meg Masters. Nice to finally talk to you when I'm not, you know, choking on my own blood."

She took a step closer and Dean aimed the gun at her heart.

She held up her hands. "It's okay. Seriously, I'm just a college girl. Sorry—was. I was walking home one night and got jumped by all this smoke. Next thing you know, I'm a prisoner... "—she put a hand to her temple—"in here. Now, I was awake. I had to watch while she murdered people."

Dean swallowed thickly. "I'm sorry."

"Oh, yeah? So sorry you had me thrown off a building?"

"Well, we thought—"

"No, you didn't think!" she said angrily. "I kept waiting, praying! I was trapped in there, screaming at you! 'Just help me, please!' You're supposed to help people, Dean. Why didn't you help me?"

"I'm sorry."

"Stop saying you're sorry!" she snarled, whipping out a hand and striking him across the jaw. The force of the punch knocked him to the floor.

"Meg. Meg..." He held up a hand. "We didn't know."

She kicked him in the gut and he curled in on himself.

"No... You just attacked. Did you ever think there was a girl in here? No. You just charged in, slashing and burning. You think you're some kind of hero?"

"No, I don't."

She grabbed the front of his shirt and dragged him up to her face. "You're damn right. Do you have any idea what it's like to be ridden for months by pure evil while your family has no idea what happened to you?"

"We did the best we could."

She shoved him back to the floor and kicked him again. He tried to crawl away, but she came after him.

"It wasn't just me, Dean. I had a sister. A little sister. She worshipped me. You know how little siblings are, right? How they'll do anything for you."

Dean nodded mutely. He knew all too well what kind of sacrifice a sibling could make for another. He had done it for Sam, and then Sam had done it for him.

Meg continued, ignoring his bright eyes. "She was never the same after I disappeared. She just... she just got lost. And when my body was lying in the morgue beat-up and broken..."

Dean groaned. "Meg."

"Do you know what that did to her? She killed herself!"

She kicked him in the stomach once again. His breath whooshed out of him and he moaned.

"Because of you, Dean! Because all you were thinking about was your family, your revenge, and your demons! Fifty words of Latin a little sooner and I'd still be alive. My baby sister would still be alive. That blood is on your hands, Dean!"

"You're right," Dean said, crawling away from her, toward his fallen gun. He grabbed at it and rolled onto his back, pointing the weapon up.

"Come on, Dean, did your brain get french-fried in Hell? You can't shoot me with bullets."

"I'm not shooting you." He took aim at the thin chain holding the chandelier to the ceiling. He took the shot, and the chandelier came crashing down, dispersing Meg into wisps of smoke. "Iron."

He struggled to his feet and grabbed the poker from the floor. "Bobby!"

He heard a muffled moan in response, and praying he wasn't too late he flung open the door of the hall closet. Bobby was there with two small girls. They were grubby looking and their identical green dresses were tattered and stained. One had a hand over Bobby's mouth and the other had a knife pressed to Bobby's throat. Dean reacted instinctively. He swung the poker through the one holding the knife and she dissipated, her sister, look one long look at Dean's murderous expression and she flickered out of existence.

"Good timing," Bobby said hoarsely.

* * *

"So, the little girls…" Dean said, ten minutes later when they each had a glass of whiskey in hand.

"It was years ago," Bobby said. "I'd only been hunting a couple of years. It was a werewolf. It got them both before I could save them."

"Meg and Henriksen, they were people I should have saved too," Dean said. "You think this is a revenge gig?"

"Could be," Bobby said. "But why now and why all of them at once?"

Dean shrugged and then something occurred to him. "There was a mark, kinda like a brand. I saw it on Henriksen and Meg."

"Show me," Bobby said, holding out a pad of paper.

Dean was no artist, but he managed a recognizable copy of the mark he'd seen.

Bobby looked it over. "I've seen this before." He moved over to the bookshelf and started grabbing books. Just then, the lights flickered. They exchanged a look and Dean grabbed a pile of the books Bobby was stacking on the desk.

"Basement?"

"Basement."

They raced out of the room and down to the panic room. Dean stacked the books on the desk and then walked the circumference of the room, taking in the weapons and boxes of C-Rations. He made a few passes and then dropped down onto the cot again. Bobby seemed absorbed in the book he was reading, and Dean didn't want to distract him, so he stayed silent for? and waited.

Eventually, Bobby smacked a hand down on the book and looked up. "Found it!"

"Found what?" Dean asked.

"The symbol you saw—the brand on the ghosts."

"Yeah?"

"Mark of the Witness."

"Witness? Witness to what?"

"The unnatural. None of them died what you'd call ordinary deaths. See, these ghosts, they were forced to rise. They woke up in agony. They were like rabid dogs. It ain't their fault. Someone rose them... on purpose."

"Who?"

"Do I look like I know?" Bobby asked. "But whoever it was used a spell so powerful it left a mark, a brand on their souls. Whoever did this had big plans. It's called "the rising of the witnesses." It figures into an ancient prophecy."

"What book is that prophecy from?"

"Well, the widely distributed version's just for tourists, you know. But long story short—Revelations. This is a sign, Dean."

"A sign of what?"

Bobby leaned back in his seat and drew a heavy breath. "The apocalypse."

"Apocalypse?" Dean gaped at him. "The apocalypse, apocalypse? The four horsemen, Pestilence, five dollar-a-gallon-gas apocalypse?

"That's the one. The rise of the witnesses is a mile marker." He flicked through the pages of his book. "I've got a spell to send the witnesses back to rest. Should work."

"Should? Great."

"If I translate it correctly. I think I got everything we need here at the house."

"Any chance you got everything we need here in this room?" Dean asked hopefully. He really didn't want to run into any more of the crazy ghost gang. It might not be their fault, rabid Bobby called them, but the punches they laid hit hard.

"So, you thought our luck was gonna start now all of a sudden? Spell's got to be cast over an open fire."

Dean sighed. "The fireplace in the library."

"Bingo."

They made their way out of the room and to the hall and then stopped short. There was a heavy-set man with curly hair sitting on the steps. Dean recognized him at once as the inept Ronald Reznick, who they'd met on a shapeshifter hunt a couple of years back. Without missing a beat, he raised his shotgun and sent a spray of rock salt into him, blasting him away.

They made it to the library and Dean set a fire in the grate while Bobby laid down a salt line. Bobby raced up the stairs and came down laden with a heavy box.

The two girls Dean had saved Bobby from before appeared just outside the salt line and started to speak.

"Bobby. You walked right by us while that monster ate us all up."

"You could have saved us."

Dean aimed his gun and took the shot. It didn't feel good, shooting at children, but it did the job. They disappeared.

"Kitchen. Cutlery drawer. It's got a false bottom. Hemlock, opium, wormwood," Bobby ordered.

Dean ran into the kitchen and pulled out the drawer. He found the ingredients but before he could take them back to Bobby, a hand reached out and grabbed him and the doors into the library slammed closed.

"Dean!" Bobby shouted.

"I'm all right, Bobby! Keep working!" He looked up into the eyes of his attacker. "Victor."

"Dean."

Dean straightened. "I know, okay, I know."

"No. You don't."

"It's my fault you're dead. I left you behind. And the minute I heard about that explosion, I thought, 'I should have known.' I should have protected you."

Dean reached behind him for the gun but it flew out of his grip and across the room.

"Not so fast. You think you left and Lilith came and we all died in a beautiful blast of white light? If only. Forty-five minutes." He was speaking through gritted teeth, his fury obvious.

"What?"

"Over forty-five minutes. Lilith said she wanted to have some fun. The secretary was first. Remember her? Nancy, the virgin. Lilith filleted Nancy's skin off piece by piece. Right in front of us, made us watch. Nancy never stopped screaming."

Dean's mind flashed a vision of the sweet, innocent secretary at the station, Nancy. She had been pure, a virgin still. She had her whole life ahead of her, and Lilith snuffed her life about because of him. She wouldn't have been there if they hadn't been so stupid as to get caught out by Bela.

"No!"

Henriksen nodded with satisfaction. "I was the last.

"Victor..."

Dean could hear Bobby pounding on the doors, but it was too late. Henriksen was already in motion. He thrust his hand into Dean's chest, almost all the way though, and Dean felt him gripping his heart. In response to the pressure, his heart pounded faster than ever. Every thump resonated in Dean's head, and he wondered, with each beat, if it would be his last. He didn't fight it. There was no fighting it. There was also no fear. He wasn't giving up exactly, he wasn't destroying Sam's sacrifice, this was his time to die, and he was okay with that.

Suddenly, there was an almighty crash and the wood of the doors burst in. A small hole was made in the wood and Bobby forced the shotgun through it and blasted the air with rock salt. Henriksen disappeared and Dean slid to the floor, clutching at his chest, mingled shame and disappointment rushing through him. Shame because, despite what he had told himself, Sam would have been ashamed of him, and disappointment as he had been so close to getting his release.

Bobby disregarded him as he scooped the ingredients out of the drawer and ran back into the library.

Dean struggled to his feet and grabbed up the shotgun from the floor. In the library, Bobby had the ingredients in the bowl and he was chanting in latin. The windows flew open and a wind blew through the room. The salt lines were blown away and the ghosts appeared en mass. Ronald, Henriksen, Meg and the creepy twins, they all appeared and Dean blew them away one by one, only pausing to reload, but they reappeared again and again. Dean ran out of salt rounds, and he was forced to resort to the iron poker to deal with the ghosts. Then Bobby's chanting broke off, and Dean turned to see Meg standing behind him with her hand shoved into his back. Bobby groaned in pain and the bowl he had been holding dropped onto the desk. Dean reacted without thinking; he grabbed the bowl and threw it onto the fire. The flames burned blue and a pulse of energy ripped through the room. Dean's eyes closed against the light and when he opened them, Bobby was kneeling on the floor.

"Bobby, you okay?" Dean panted as he dropped to his knees beside him.

Bobby nodded. "I'll be good. Just give me a minute."

Dean sat back on his haunches and tried to catch his breath.

"I'll be fine," Bobby said breathlessly. "But you might not. You and I are going to have a talk."

"Bobby…"

"Don't you _Bobby_ me." Bobby pushed himself to his feet and stared down at Dean. "I saw you in there, when Henriksen had you by the pumper. You weren't fighting."

"How was I supposed to fight a ghost without a weapon?" Dean asked.

Bobby shook his head and breathed heavily. "Okay. You didn't have a weapon, but I saw your face. You weren't fighting in here,"—he patted his chest over his heart—"where it matters."

Dean felt like a child with Bobby staring down at him like that, so he pushed himself to his feet.

Bobby got to his feet and grabbed Dean's shoulders. Yanking him around so they were face to face, he asked, "Are you trying to die?"

"No, I would never…"

Bobby stared into his eyes, and Dean knew he saw the truth there. He wasn't trying to die, but he wasn't fighting to live either.

"Sam wouldn't want—"

"I don't care!" Dean said harshly. "You don't understand what it's like for me."

"I don't understand?" Bobby dropped his hands from Dean's shoulders and his fists balled. Dean braced himself for a punch, but it didn't come. Instead, Bobby turned away from him and spoke through gritted teeth. "Sam is dead, and that hurts. He was my boy and he's gone, and nothing you nor I can do will fix that. But what we can do is fight. You saw them people tonight. They were the people we couldn't save. Think of all the people that weren't here tonight because we _did _save them. You and I have a choice to make. We can honor Sam by doing what he would want us to do, fighting, or we can go give up and let his legacy be one of death and pain. Now, what do you choose?"

Dean turned away from his surrogate father and stared out of the window. The truth was that, as much as he wanted to honor Sam, he didn't think he had the strength to do it.

"I don't know, Bobby. I just don't know."

There was a strange rustling sound and a hand rested on Dean's shoulder and he turned, expecting to be met with Bobby's disappointment, but it was Castiel standing there.

"You," he said, "are going to need to come with me."

* * *

**So... Cas is back and he's on a mission. The next chapter is one of my absolute favorites of the story and I can't wait for you all to read it. **

**Thank you hugs go to everyone that has read, reviewed, fave'd and alerted Going It Alone so far. Your support means the world to me and it's that motivation that is getting me through the tougher spots of the sequel — and believe me there have been a few. **

**Until next time *hugs***

**CoM x **


	8. Chapter 8

***happy dances* It's finally time for chapter eight. I have been looking forward to you all reading this chapter for weeks now, and it's finally time. Of course this is where our opinions may differ. I am really pleased with this chapter but you may think it's utter doggy doo. If you enjoyed it, please let me know so I can stop chewing my fingernails. **

**Special thanks to SandraEngstrom1 for beta'ing this with her super-speedy-skills. It's thanks to her that you get a double update this week. **

* * *

**Chapter Eight**

Dean tried to pull away from Castiel, but his grip was too strong. He had one look at Bobby's shocked expression and then he was being dragged away through swirling colors. His eyes squeezed closed and he braced himself for he didn't know what. He landed heavily and a jolt radiated up his legs, making him sway. Castiel steadied him as he opened his eyes. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dim light coming through the window, and when they did, his heart contracted painfully in his chest. He knew this place.

His senses were overwhelmed with the scent of baby powder and something unidentifiable that made him think of home. The room was small, with pale blue walls and dark wooden furniture. There was a changing station against one wall and under the window, there was a crib, and in the crib, there was a baby.

"Sammy," Dean breathed. He rounded on Castiel. "Why am I here?"

"I want you to watch."

At that moment, two people appeared in the doorway, a small child in his mother's arms. Dean absorbed the sight of the woman, taking in her long blonde hair and sweet smile.

"Mom" he moaned.

"Come on," his mother said. "Let's say goodnight to your brother."

She set his younger self on the floor and he raced across the room to his brother. He bent over the crib side and kissed his forehead. "Night, Sam."

Neither of them seemed to notice the two men standing beside the crib, which made Dean sure they couldn't. Whatever Castiel had done to bring him here, hadn't been in the physical sense. He was a ghost in his own past.

His mother bent over too pressed a kiss to Sam's forehead, smoothing back his fuzz of hair. "Goodnight, love."

"Hey, Dean." A man appeared at the door. He looked drastically different to the last time Dean had seen him. He was smiling as his young son ran into his arms. The dark shadowed eyes and haunted expression that had been staples of Dean's older childhood years were absent. This was John Winchester without the weight of his wife's death hanging over him.

"Daddy!"

Dean watched as John swept his younger self into his arms with a beaming smile. "So what do you think? You think Sammy's ready to toss around a football yet?"

"No, Daddy," his younger self said with amusement.

"No?"

Mary Winchester passed them, laying a hand on her son's back. "You got him?"

John nodded. "I got him." He stared across the room at his youngest son. "Sweet dreams, Sam."

"Hold on," Dean said. "I know this night. This is the night my mom…"

"This is the night your mother dies," Castiel said solemnly.

"This is great!" Dean didn't care if this man was an angel a demon or Santa Claus. He had brought Dean back. He could save her, he could save them all. If Mary never died, John would never have become a hunter. If John wasn't a hunter, he would never have gone after the yellow-eyed demon, and Dean wouldn't have been so messed up. John wouldn't have to make a deal to save his life. Sam wouldn't have died in Cold Oak and Dean wouldn't have made a deal to bring him back… Sam wouldn't have made his own deal to save Dean. They would have a nice, normal apple pie life. Sam would go to college and Dean would… Who cared what Dean did as long as he had his family?

"Castiel, man, I don't know what to say," he said breathlessly. "This is…"

"This is not your salvation," Castiel said.

"What?" Dean staggered back a step under the force of his shock. "What do you mean?"

"We are not here to save. We are here to witness."

"Witness what? My mom being burned alive by that yellow-eyed son of a bitch?

"I will not make you witness that," Castiel said. "I will take you away before that happens."

"You can't! I have to save her, all of us."

"You cannot change the past, Dean. Whatever happens, happens. There is nothing to be done."

Dean raked his hands through his hair. He didn't care what Castiel said. He was going to change this. He _had to _change this. He moved over to the side of the crib and looked down at his baby brother. "I'm going to save you, Sammy."

The baby gurgled happily. Oblivious to Dean's promise.

Then something happened. The small lamp on the shelf that cast a dim light over the room flickered and the mobile began to turn of its own accord. The clock on the wall ticked and then froze.

They were no longer alone. A man in a long coat was standing beside Dean at the crib.

There was movement out on the hall, and his mother appeared again. "John is he hungry?"

The man turned and shushed Mary, and she mumbled, "okay," and then turned and left.

The man at the crib turned back to look at Sam, and Dean caught sight of his eyes, his yellow eyes.

"You bastard!" Dean shouted, lunging at the man. He tried to wrap his fingers around the demon's neck, but his hands moved right through him as if he was made of smoke.

"We are here to witness only," Castiel said calmly.

"Witness!" Dean bellowed. "He's about to kill my mother. How can you stand there and let this happen?"

"I have no choice."

Dean was impotent in his rage, forced to stand and watch as the man ran his fingernail over his wrist, parting the skin. The blood welled in the wound and the demon moved his hand so it was poised above Sam. The blood dripped down into Sam's open mouth.

"What the hell?" Dean said. "What's he doing? Does this mean… Does this mean Sam has demon blood in him?"

Castiel nodded serenely. "He did."

Suddenly, Mary appeared at the door again and the demon turned to face her. An incomprehensible look of recognition crossed her face and she gasped. "It's you!"

"She knew him?" Dean asked.

Without answering, Castiel laid a hand on Dean's shoulder and then they were moving again. They came to a halt outside the house they had just left, but time had passed. Now, the house was in flames and firefighters were battling the flames. John Winchester sat on the hood of the Impala with Sam In his arms and Dean leaning against his side.

"The things you just saw were the result of a demon deal," Castiel said. "Ten years before this night, your father died at the hands of the demon Azazel."

"What? No he didn't. He can't have."

"He did," Castiel said. "Your mother, who grew up in a hunting family, made a deal to save his life."

"You mean what just happened, Sammy getting dosed with demon blood, she knew about it?"

Castiel shook his head. "She didn't know what would happen. Her deal was that in ten years she was to allow the demon to come into your home and remain uninterrupted. As you know, she did interrupt, and her life was forfeit."

Dean's mind was reeling. His mother had made a deal. It really was a Winchester tradition. Every one of them had done it and it had cost them their lives.

Dean cast his father and his brother a look of longing and then turned to Castiel. "Okay, I've seen it. Can we go now?"

Castiel nodded, and a moment later, they were moving again. Dean had expected to return to Bobby's place, but Castiel had brought him to a crappy looking motel. It was like a hundred others he had spent his life in, with stained, threadbare carpets and anachronistic wallpaper.

Then Dean saw the occupants of the room and the wallpaper suddenly made sense. His younger self was there again, and so was Sam, except Sam was bigger now than the baby he'd seen last time. Now he had to be around a year old and he was standing on his unsteady feet.

The younger Dean was sitting in front of him and he had his arms raised out in front of him, ready to embrace his brother. "C'mon Sammy. You can do it," he said enthusiastically.

Sam's eyebrows pinched together with concentration as he raised one wobbly foot from the floor and took a step towards his brother.

Young Dean whooped with glee. "That's it. One more!"

The baby took another step and fell into his triumphant brother's arms. Young Dean caught him and hugged him close. "You did it, Sammy!"

The motel door opened and Dean turned to see his father stepping into the room. _This _was the John Winchester Dean knew. His brow was furrowed in his permanent frown and his expression was dour.

"He did it, Dad!" Dean said excitedly, catching sight of his father. "He walked two whole steps."

John smiled grimly and crossed the room. He ruffled Sam's hair and said with forced enthusiasm, "Well done, Sam. Two steps on your birthday."

Before Dean could ask Castiel anything, they were moving again. When they came to a stop, they were in front of a motel complex. Even as he turned and took in the dusty white walls and cars parked outside the rooms, a door opened and his younger self walked out. He had aged about four years and he was carrying a backpack Dean remembered with fondness. It had a picture of _Big Foot_ on the front. Dean remembered how he had to beg his father for it for his birthday that year. John had pointed out again and again that it was stupid as Big Foot didn't exist, but that was half the fun for Dean.

Behind his younger self came Sam. He was a child now, aged about five, and he was so different, even though he was sporting 'The Face'.

"I don't wanna go, Dean," he whined. "Why can't I stay with Miss. Kelly?"

"Because you're a big boy now, and big boys go to school," Dean mouthed the words along with his younger self. He remembered this day. It was Sam's first day of school, and unlike the geek that he grew to be, he really didn't want to go.

The adult Dean smiled fondly and turned to Castiel. "Kelly was the receptionist for the motel. Sam was a little in love with her because she gave him candy. He used to…" He trailed off as realization came to him. He was sharing stories of Sam with the angel that had the power to save him but wouldn't. What was he thinking?

"He used to what?" Castiel asked.

Dean shook his head. "It doesn't matter." He turned his attention back to his brother. Sam had stopped in the middle of the parking lot and he was refusing to budge.

"C'mon, Sammy, we're gonna be late," his younger self said. "You'll like school. They'll be lots of kids to play with."

"What if they're mean," Sam asked in a tremulous voice.

Young Dean smirked. "Then you take their names and I'll come fix 'em."

"You promise?"

Dean nodded and his adult counterpart made the vow at the same time as he did. "I promise. No one's gonna hurt you, Sam. I'll take care of you."

They moved again and came to a stop to a scene Dean instantly recognized. "Aww, man," he groaned. "I don't want to see this again."

"It's important," Castiel said.

Dean knew that already. It was a watershed moment in Sam's life. One that, even at the time, Dean wished he could take back, preserving Sam's innocence a little longer.

His twelve-year-old self was sitting on the edge of the bed with a can of soda in his hand. Sam was sitting on the opposite bed. "I know why you keep a gun under your pillow," he said solemnly.

The younger Dean lifted his pillow to check the gun was still there. "No, you don't. Stay out of my stuff."

Sam continued mercilessly. "And I know why we lay salt down everywhere we go."

"No, you don't. Shut up." Dean remembered the panic that had gripped him as Sam had said that. He had known in that moment that his job of protecting Sam had failed, as he knew the truth. Dean had wanted him to stay innocent just a little longer.

Sam leaned over the bed and pulled something out from under the mattress. He tossed it onto the bedside table and young Dean blanched as he caught sight of his father's journal.

He jumped to his feet. "Where'd you get that? That's Dad's! He's gonna kick your ass for reading that."

"Are monsters real?" And there it was. The question Dean wished he could give any other answer to but the truth.

He tried to bluster his way through it. "What? You're crazy."

"Tell me," Sam demanded.

Young Dean looked away and the adult Dean remembered the pain of indecision in that moment as he deliberated between telling the truth and keeping Sam protected a little longer.

"I swear, if you ever tell Dad I told you any of this, I will end you."

"Promise."

Dean sat down again. "Well, the first thing you have to know is we have the coolest dad in the world. He's a superhero."

Sam looked doubtful. "He is?"

"Yeah." Young Dean sighed. "Monsters are real. Dad fights them. He's fighting them right now."

Sam chewed his lip, deep in thought. "But Dad said the monsters under my bed weren't real."

Young Dean smiled. "That's 'cause he had already checked under there. But yeah, they're real. Almost everything's real."

"Is Santa real?"

"No."

"If monsters are real, then they could get us." Sam eyes widened and he looked scared. "They could get me."

"Dad's not gonna let them get you."

"But what if they get him?"

Dean huffed a laugh, caught in the delusion that his father was superhuman. Dean had almost believed that until the day his father had died. "They aren't gonna get Dad. Dad's, like, the best."

"I read in Dad's book that they got Mom."

Young Dean sighed heavily. "It's complicated, Sam."

"If they got Mom, they can get Dad, and if they can get Dad, they can get us."

"It's not like that." Young Dean moved to sit on the other bed, beside his brother. "Okay? Dad's fine. We're fine. Trust me. You okay?"

Sam looked away. "Yeah."

"Hey, Dad's gonna be here for Christmas. Just like he always is."

Sam was visibly fighting back the tears. "I just want to go to sleep, okay?"

"Yeah, okay."

Sam lay down on the bed and curled into himself. His tears began to fall and his breaths became shaky.

"It'll all be better when you wake up. You'll see. Promise."

The adult Dean sat down on the edge of the bed beside his weeping brother and reached out as if to touch Sam, but then he realized he couldn't, and his heart broke a little.

He laid a hand over his own chest, pressing the weight of the amulet he wore against his skin. It was that night that Sam had given it to him. It was supposed to be a gift for his father, but Sam had given it to Dean. He'd never told Sam, but that simple action had meant the world to him.

Castiel reached out and Dean was pulled away from his weeping brother and dragged into another place and time.

He didn't recognize the place at first outside of realizing it was a school, one of many they had attended over the years, and then he spotted a gaggle of children grouped around a heavy-set kid that had just pushed over a younger boy.

"Got to watch where you're going, man," the heavy-set boy said.

Despite the fact he was a ghost in this place and time, Dean hurried toward the kids, hoping to protect the younger kid from the bully. He had just reached them when another kid pushed through the crowd and Dean felt a jolt of recognition.

"Leave him alone, Dirk," Sam said.

The bigger kid, Dirk, rounded on Sam. "You never learn, do you, midget?"

Sam addressed his friend. "Get to the bus, Barry."

The young kid ran off and Sam tried to follow but Dirk shoved at Sam's back, knocking him to the floor.

"What's the matter?" Dirk asked in a mocking voice. "You scared? Don't worry. I'll go easy on you this time. Come on, Lose-chester. Let's see what you got. Come on, freak! Freak!"

"C'mon, Sammy," Dean muttered. "Take him down."

As if he had heard his brother's command, Sam jumped to his feet and launched himself at Dirk, shoving him back. Dirk clearly hadn't had his power as school bully challenged in a long time, if ever, and he looked completely taken aback at the fact Sam was the one to fight back. He swung a fist through the air, but Sam dodged him, dropping down and landing a hard punch in Dirk's gut. The kid's breath rushed out of him in a whoosh and he made to punch Sam again, but Sam was too fast. With lightning quick moves, learned through hours of roughhousing with Dean under his father's eyes, he pounded into Dirk. For every attempted punch from Dirk, Sam was there, landing one hard. He kicked Dirk's knee, dropping him to the ground.

He looked down at the bully with open loathing in his eyes. With one last punch, he dropped Dirk out on his back. "You're not tough. You're just a jerk. Dirk the jerk."

The children surrounding them took up the chant, and "Dirk the jerk" became their anthem. They shouted it at the boy even as he scrambled to his feet and ran away.

Dean watched as anger was overcome by exultation in his brother's eyes. As a child, Sam hated violence, but in that moment, he relished the other children's chants and became a hero.

Again, there was the dizzying sensation of being moved and when he opened his eyes, he saw his younger self standing by the Impala in an empty field. A younger Sam pulled a crate of fireworks out of the trunk and beamed at his brother.

"I remember this," Dean said. "It's fourth of July, ninety-six."

Castiel nodded. "You burn down a field, I believe."

Dean nodded happily. This was one of his favorite memories. His father had been off on a hunt and Sam and Dean had blown their entire food budget on fireworks.

"Got your lighter?" Sam asked, holding up a firework

Dean watched his younger self pull out a Zippo lighter from his pocket and set light to the fuse. He lit one for himself and he and Sam stood side by side holding the fireworks out beside them. There were popping sounds and sparks flew into the air.

When the fireworks died out, Sam turned to his brother. "Dad would never let us do anything like this. Thanks, Dean. This is great."

He threw his arms around his brother, and Dean almost felt he could feel the embrace once again. Sam hadn't held him like that again for a long time. He'd thought he was too old. Dean hadn't said it, he had man points to protect, but he'd missed it.

When they settled in a new time and place, Dean looked around, trying to place his surroundings, but he didn't recognize anything. It was a bar, with music playing from a jukebox, but not so loud speech was indecipherable. The place smelled of spilled beer and ladies' perfume.

"Where are we?" he asked Castiel. "I don't recognize it."

"That's because you have not been here before," Castiel said cryptically.

Dean was going to question him further, but then he caught sight of his brother, and his attention was diverted. It was Sam as an adult. Not as old as he had been when Dean last saw him, maybe five years out. He still had some soft roundness of youth in his face, and his eyes were alight with excitement. Beside him was another young man with blond hair and an impish expression.

"C'mon, Sam," the man said. "I want you to meet someone."

Sam looked reluctant, but he followed his friend through the crowd to the bar. There was a woman standing at the bar, with long, wavy blonde hair. As she turned, Dean recognized her at once.

"Jess," he said sadly.

"Sam, this here's my good friend Jessica," the man said. "Jess, this is Sam. He's pre-law."

Jessica smiled and Dean understood why his brother had been so enamored with her. She was beautiful and her pure life force radiated from her.

Sam ducked his head with a smile. "Nice to meet you, Jess."

She beamed at him. "You, too, Sam."

Dean felt a lump form in his throat. This was the life Sam should have had, college and Jess and friends, not hunting, deals and death.

When Castiel laid a hand on his shoulder, he knew exactly where they were going to come out, and he couldn't do a thing to stop it.

The room was dark, the only dim illumination coming from a streetlight outside the window. Two figures were fighting, attempting to land blows and blocking punches with ease. They were old partners at this dance. Eventually, Dean pinned Sam to the floor.

"Whoa, easy, tiger."

"Dean?"

The younger Dean laughed.

"You scared the crap out of me!"

He grinned down at his brother. "That's 'cause you're out of practice."

Sam flipped them so Dean was pinned to the floor.

"Or not," The younger Dean said. "Get off of me."

"What the hell are you doing here?" Sam asked.

Dean placed his hand on his brother shoulders. "Well, I was looking for a beer."

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"Okay. All right. We gotta talk," Dean said.

He remembered that night like it was yesterday, when it had really been over three years ago. He didn't need to keep watching to know what would happen next. He would tell Sam about John's hunting trip and guilt him into leaving so he wouldn't be alone. Because of Dean's selfishness, Sam would leave Jessica unprotected and she would die. Sam would be dragged back into the hunting world that would eventually lead to his death.

"I don't need to see this, Castiel," he said.

Castiel eyed him for a moment and then nodded. "Perhaps you don't."

They moved once again, and Dean found himself in a dim room with a familiar and devastating sight in front of him. It was after Sam had been killed by Jake. He was lying on a bare mattress, dead, and Dean's slightly younger self was sitting in a chair looking down at him and speaking softly.

"You know, when we were little— you couldn't been more than five—you just started asking questions. How come we didn't have a mom? Why do we always have to move around? Where'd Dad go when he'd take off for days at a time? I remember I begged you—'Quit asking, Sammy. Man, you don't want to know.' I just wanted you to be a kid... Just for a little while longer."

Dean spoke up, overriding his younger self's monologue. "I don't need to see this. I've lived this already."

His younger self got to his feet and made for the door. Dean knew where he was going, to the crossroad to make the deal.

"But you are not seeing the truth I am trying to impart," Castiel said. "This is where you went wrong."

Dean's hands fisted at his sides. "You think I should have left him dead?"

Castiel nodded serenely. "If you had, so much could have been avoided."

Dean spoke through gritted teeth. "I couldn't let him be dead. I just couldn't."

"Why?" Castiel asked. "Because it wasn't the right thing for him or because it wasn't the right thing for you? Your brother was in Heaven. You tore him out for your own sake."

"I didn't…" Dean trailed off. He couldn't lie. He had suspected Sam was in Heaven when he made that deal. He hadn't done it only to save Sam, he had done it to save himself. He needed his brother with him, and that was what had carried him to the crossroads. "I needed him," he admitted.

"I know you did," Castiel said. "But because you needed him, things were set in motion that we are now fighting to stop."

"The apocalypse?" Dean asked. "Is that for real?"

"It is. The rise of the witnesses was one of the first seals."

"You mean you knew all about it? Well, thanks a lot for the angelic assistance. You know, I almost got my heart ripped out of my chest!"

"And I can imagine how much you would have hated that," Castiel said sardonically. "Isn't that what all this is about? You have been searching for a way to end yourself since your buried your brother."

"Bobby almost died!" Dean said, disregarding the rest of Castiel's words. "You say you're an angel. I thought angels were supposed to be guardians. Fluffy wings, halos—you know, Michael Landon. Not dicks."

"Read the Bible. Angels are warriors of God. I'm a soldier."

"Yeah? Then, why didn't you fight?"

"I'm not here to perch on your shoulder. I had larger concerns."

"Concerns? There were people getting torn to shreds down here! And, by the way, while all this is going on, where the hell is your boss, huh, if there is a God?"

"There's a God."

"I'm not convinced. 'Cause if there's a God, what the hell is he waiting for, huh? Genocide? Monsters roaming the earth? The freaking apocalypse? At what point does he lift a damn finger and help the poor bastards that are stuck down here? Where was he when my brother got dragged to Hell?"

"The Lord works—"

"If you say "mysterious ways," so help me, I will kick your ass."

Castiel sighed. "There are big things afoot. This is why I am showing you these things."

"You think a trip down memory-kick-your-ass-emotionally-lane is the way to get me on your side."

"That is not why we are here," Castiel said. "I will show you. There is more you must see."

Dean sighed and waited as he was moved once more. They came to a stop in a seedy looking motel room. There were whiskey bottles dotted around the room and the air stank of liquor and vomit. Sam was there, sitting back against the headboard, and there was a woman Dean didn't recognize. She was petite, with long dark hair and a deceptively innocent face. She was kneeling on the bed beside Sam holding a silver flask in one hand.

"Just try it," she crooned. "You want to be strong enough to kill Lilith, don't you?" With those words, Dean divined who the woman was, despite the fact she had taken a new meat suit, Ruby.

Sam nodded and reached for the flask.

"No" Sam!" Dean bellowed, but Sam couldn't hear him. He didn't know what was in that flask, but he knew it had to be something bad.

"That's it," Ruby said, with open lust in her eyes. "Just a sip."

Sam brought the flask to his lips and tilted it back. His eyes widened as whatever was in the bottle touched his tongue, and he jerked the flask away. As he did, a trickle of the contents dripped down his chin, and Dean gagged.

"Blood! He's going to drink her blood?"

Castiel shook his head. "Watch."

Dean turned his attention back to what was happening in front of him. Sam had pushed Ruby away and she'd fallen to the floor. Sam loomed over her, his lips pressed together in a thin line. With an expression of deepest disgust, he drew back and spat the blood into her face.

She looked up at him with the blood dripping down her cheek. "You're going to regret that. How will you avenge your brother now?"

Sam snarled. "I won't need to avenge him. I will save him."

Dean turned to Castiel. "What's next?"

"I have one last thing to show you," Castiel said serenely.

They arrived in a familiar room. It was the room Sam had laid in at Bill's.

Sam was there, and he was unchanged from the last time Dean saw him except for the fact he was alive. He was squatting down beside his duffel, packing away clothes. On top of the clothes, he laid a wad of maps. Dean caught a glimpse of them, and saw they were marked with red crosses all coinciding with a crossroads. He sighed heavily as he understood the implications. Sam had tried dozens of crossroads, searching for the right demon.

Sam straightened and ran his hands through his hair. His hand came to rest on the amulet laid on his chest. He stared at it for a moment, deep in thought and then his fingers closed over it. He picked up an envelope from the bed and tucked it into his pocket.

He left the room and Dean and Castiel followed him into the kitchen. Ellen was sitting at the kitchen table. She looked up as Sam entered, and smiled sadly.

"Everything's ready," Sam said.

"Is there really nothing I can do to change your mind?" Ellen asked.

Sam shook his head. "There really isn't. I have to do this, Ellen. I have to save him."

Ellen wiped at her eyes. "I wish there was another way."

"So do I, so much, but there isn't. I can't leave him there. This is our only hope."

Dean rounded on Castiel. "You hear that? He thinks he had no choice. Why didn't you stop him?"

"We didn't know," Castiel serenely.

Sam drew Dean's attention again by sitting down at the table opposite Ellen and clasping her hands in his own. "Try to understand. I am doing the right thing here. I know what I am doing, and I have never been so at peace. Everything about this feels right. I'm going to save him."

"He'll try to get you back," Ellen said.

"I hope he doesn't. This thing could go on forever, us sacrificing ourselves for each other. You have to make sure he knows. I don't want him to bring me back."

"You're going to Hell, Sam. Do you understand what that means?"

Sam nodded. "I do, but I know it will be easier to bear the fires and knives down there than to live in a world in which Dean is suffering for me."

"Oh, Sam," Dean moaned. He had no idea. No happy thoughts could save you in the pit. The place was pain and fear and hatred unless you came off the rack, and that was somehow worse.

"We are done," Castiel said. "Do you want a little longer with your brother?"

Dean shook his head. He couldn't bear to be around his brother without being able to make contact. There were a hundred things he wanted to say to him, but no way to say them. He looked at his brother one last time, absorbing the exhilaration in his eyes, and turned away.

"I'm done."

* * *

They arrived in Bobby's study. The older man was sitting at the desk with his head cradled in his hands. As they arrived, he looked up and breathed a heavy sigh of relief. "Dean."

Dean nodded. "In the flesh."

"What the hell happened to you?"

"Ask angel-air over here," Dean said, gesturing to Castiel. "He's been bouncing me through time and America in his version of my crappiest hits."

Bobby frowned. "He did what?"

Dean opened his mouth to explain, but Castiel spoke over him. "I was trying to impart a message. Do you see what it was yet?"

Dean nodded. "Yeah. No matter how hard I try, I fail Sam one way or another."

Castiel closed his eyes for a long moment, and when he opened them, he glared at Dean. "No, Dean. I showed you a life well lived. Your brother had a good life and his passing, while tragic for you, was what he wanted."

Dean shook his head. "He didn't want Hell. He thought he had no choice."

"And yet, he went there willingly anyway. That is neither here nor there. There is more you were supposed to see. Do you remember what Ruby did to Sam?"

"Ruby? What's she got to do with anything?" Bobby asked.

"She tried to get Sam to drink blood," Dean said and then turned to Castiel. "It was her own blood, right, demon blood?"

Castiel nodded. "She was trying to fuel Sam's dormant powers. That is the world as it should have been."

"You mean my brother was supposed to be some kind of vampire?"

"In a way, yes. Archangels have a certain degree of prescience. They saw the world as it should have been long ago, with you and your brother at the helm of a great battle. It was supposed to start and end with blood."

Dean's brows pinched together with confusion. "What does that mean?"

"I do not know," Castiel said. "I am a soldier among many. I take orders much like you once did from your father. I do not know everything I desire to know, but I accept that as my lot. One thing I do know is that the world is wrong. You were supposed to be raised by angels, and your brother was supposed to live so he could play his part. You _must_ do your part!"

"What is my part?" Dean asked.

"You must fight," Castiel said. "One seal was broken—"

"Who did the breaking?" Bobby asked, breaking Castiel's flow of words.

"Lilith. She has a certain sense of humor."

"But we put those spirits back to rest," Dean said with satisfaction.

"It doesn't matter. The seal was broken."

"Why break the seal anyway?" Bobby asked.

"You think of the seals as locks on a door."

A sick sinking sensation crept through Dean's gut. "Okay. Last one opens and..."

"Lucifer walks free," Castiel said calmly.

The sinking sensation in Dean's gut was replaced by heart clenching fear. "Lucifer? But I thought Lucifer was just a story they told at demon Sunday school. There's no such thing."

"Three days ago, you thought there was no such thing as me. Why do you think we're here walking among you now for the first time in two thousand years?"

"To stop Lucifer."

"That's why we've arrived."

Bobby looked pale. "So when you say apocalypse, you really mean…"

"I mean the genuine end of times," Castiel said. "And Dean is a vital piece in that war. I showed you those things to make you understand. Your brother lived a life well, and while his passing is painful for you, it is not the end. That is still to come, and you have a role to play."

Dean shook his head. "I don't want a part of any of this. I just want my brother back."

Castiel locked eyes with Dean and Dean got the feeling he was trying to impart some great secret. "You _need _to play your part. I will return with instructions." That said, he disappeared with a faint rustling sound.

* * *

**Thanks as always to you lovely people that are reading and reviewing. Your support has got me through the first week of NaNoWriMo. The sequel is coming along nicely and I have already blown past my word count goal. **


	9. Chapter 9

**I am ridiculously excited about you reading this chapter. It's one of my favorites as I get to bring in a much loved character. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. **

**I am indebted to SanrdaEngstrom1 for her help with this chapter. It really was a mess when I sent it to her. When I got it back with her corrections I was quite embarrassed by the silly mistakes I had made. Sandra, I love you.**

* * *

**Chapter Nine**

Dean woke on the tail end of a nightmare, panting and sweating. He threw back the bedclothes and perched on the edge of the bed, raking a hand through his short hair. It was always the same, he went to bed alcohol-sodden and exhausted, but the nightmares greeted him each night. It had been the same thing since his trip down memory kick-your-ass lane with Castiel two weeks before. He was in the pit again, on the rack, broken and bleeding, and Alastair came, making him the offer. Every night he made the same choice, despite the fact he tried with all his being to say no, and he was cut down and handed a blade. He knew who it would be on his rack, it was always him, but as he looked down on Sam's twisted form, he felt the same sick swooping in his gut. He would beg and plead with Alastair, to let Sam off and for Dean to take his place again, but he was always refused. And then came the worst part, the part that made this something worse than a terrible nightmare. Sam would look up at him with a look of abject despair and say, "But I got you out. How can you choose this when I got you out?"

Shaking his head to dispel the images of his nightmare, he got to his feet and padded barefoot into the bathroom. His hands shook as he turned the faucet and his legs didn't want to support him as he stepped under the stream of water. He pushed through it though, forcing himself to remain upright long enough to wash the sweat and phantom blood from his body. Step by step, it was the only way he knew how to function now.

Fifteen minutes later, he was dressed and in the kitchen, waiting for the coffee to brew. He would've liked something stronger, whiskey to be exact, but Bobby would only bitch and moan about it, so he would wait until it was what Bobby thought of as a decent time of the day to be drinking. Anything for an easier life.

"Okay, Rufus, I'll see what I can do," Bobby said into the telephone. "I'll let you know."

Dean looked up and waited for Bobby's attack. It would come. It came every day.

"There's a case in Brunswick."

And there it was.

Every day Bobby would spring news on him of some case that Dean had to take care of. Dean was convinced Rufus was holed up at Bill's, snagging cases off of other hunters for Bobby to temp Dean with. Dean didn't care about cases. He had a role to play, apparently, and he was up for that. As soon as he knew how, he would throw himself into a hunt that would stop a seal breaking, but he wasn't chasing around the country taking care of other people's crap for them. He was done. There were a hundred other hunters to do that job for them.

"Not interested," he grunted.

"Dean, you gotta do something," Bobby said impatiently.

The coffee maker gurgled its last and Dean poured himself a mug. He brought it to his lips and inhaled deeply. The bitter scent was almost as good as the taste for chasing away memories of the night before.

"Sam wouldn't want…" Bobby began.

Dean slammed his mug down on the counter, splashing his hand with scalding coffee. He didn't feel the pain of the burn at first, there was a different pain in him.

"Sam told me to do what I wanted," he said through gritted teeth. "And this is what I want."

"He didn't mean for you to waste your life, the gifts your father gave you. Sam would want—"

"Enough!" Dean bellowed, driven past his point of endurance. Every morning Bobby railed on about what Sam would want and what he had given for Dean, as if Dean didn't already know. Bobby acted like he could read Sam's mind, and Dean knew that was a pile of crap. He'd been trying to master that skill for his whole life and he'd never succeeded. But he was the closest. Bobby barely knew Sam at all in comparison. He had no right to cite what Sam would and wouldn't want to achieve his own ends.

"I don't want to hear it, Bobby. In fact, I don't want to hear Sam's name from you at all."

"Dean," Bobby said in a sigh.

"No. I'm done. You don't know what he would want. I'm his _brother_ and even I don't know that."

"I'm not saying I know him better than you," Bobby said stiffly. "But I do know him, he was my…"

"Boy?" Dean said sarcastically. "Your son? He wasn't. He was _my _family, my blood, and he's gone. You can crap on about how sad that makes you all you like, but you don't know a damn thing about it. I am living it."

Bobby's hands fisted at his sides and he breathed heavily through his nose. "You're hurting, god knows I know that, but you talk to me like that again and I'll…"

"You'll what?" Dean stepped forward, getting uncomfortably close to Bobby. "Punch me?" He held out his hands in front of him and pushed his face into Bobby's space. "Go ahead. I'll even let you have one for free."

Bobby stepped back and raised his hands. "I'm not gonna fight ya. Just look at yourself, though. Facing off against the only family you have left."

"You're not my family! My family is dead!"

Dean was satisfied by the look of sadness that etched its lines into Bobby's face. It made him grimly happy that Bobby was seeing the truth at last. For all his talk of family and how it didn't end with blood, he was just an old man Sam and Dean had used for information and a place to stay. He wasn't family.

Bobby took an involuntary step back as if Dean's words had been blows. He shook his head. "Get out then. You say I'm not family, that I don't understand; get out of my damn house and be alone. That's the way you clearly want it, so take it."

Dean nodded and made for the stairs. In the small room he had used as his own, he gathered his few belongings and shoved them into a duffel. Throwing it over his shoulder, he went back down the stairs and into the kitchen. His jacket was hanging over the back of a chair, and he dragged it on and then made for the door. He half-expected Bobby to say something as he swung it open and stepped outside, but when he turned back Bobby was standing where Dean had left him, staring out of the window.

As he let the door close behind him, he heard a muffled crash from inside and a voice bellowing, "Balls!"

* * *

Dean drove aimlessly for hours, taking turns and choosing roads at what he thought was random. He hadn't been planning on going there, but he soon found himself driving the streets of what once had been his home.

Lawrence had changed, not that he had many memoires of the town as a child, but he found it hard to believe there had been as many iCafes there when he was young. He remembered a liquor store from the visit to town Sam and he had made a few years ago, and he directed the car in that direction.

The guy behind the counter gave Dean an appraising look as he wrapped the bottle of _Four Roses_ in a paper bag and handed it over. Dean waited for him to comment, eager for someone else to vent his anger towards, but it didn't come. The guy had just taken his card, run it through the system and handed over the bottle.

Dean stuffed it under his arm and was almost back at the car when someone walked straight into him. He rocked back, a dozen insults on his tongue, and then he caught sight of who it was.

Despite the fact over three years had passed since he last saw her, Missouri Mosely hadn't changed a bit. Her hair was pulled back from her face with a long scarf and she wore a heavy cardigan despite the late Kansas summer heat. Her lips pursed as she took in the bottle tucked under Dean's arm and she shook her head. "You're not going to be needing that now, Dean." She plucked it out of his grip and tucked it into a fathomless handbag on her arm.

Dean merely gaped at her. He had thought when he drove into the town's limits that he would stop by and see her, but he had wanted it to be on his terms. She had caught him off guard, appearing like that, and it unsettled him.

He reached for her bag to take the bottle, wanting to take back control of the situation, but she slapped his hand away.

"I know your momma taught you better than to go for a lady's handbag," she scolded. "You don't need that yet. Now, get into that gas-guzzler of a car of yours and come to my house. I know you remember where it is. I'll be waiting." She bustled away down the street, hips swinging.

Dean was pissed. He figured he would wait for her to leave get round the corner and then he would get himself another bottle and get the hell out of town. Coming here had been a bad idea.

She turned and waggled a finger at him. "No detours now, Dean. I've got a pot-roast ready and I hate to eat alone."

Dean cursed inwardly. He'd forgotten about her whole mind-reader gig. How was he supposed to get away from her now?

"You don't. And mind your mouth," she said.

Rolling his eyes, Dean nodded and climbed into the Impala. He would follow her back to her place, see what she had to say, and then he would get out of dodge. He would find a nice rundown motel somewhere in which he could drown his sorrows without being interfered with.

The drive to Missouri's small house didn't take nearly long enough, despite the fact he'd dragged his heels. She was waiting for him on the porch steps, her handbag sitting on her knees.

"Took you long enough," she said as he climbed out of the car.

Dean grunted an apology.

"It's no matter," she said sweetly.

She unlocked the front door and gestured Dean in ahead of her. The place looked exactly as he remembered, dark woods and heavy furniture, with the scent of joss sticks and sound of tinkling wind chimes in the air. He stepped into the lounge and stood, like a child summoned before a headmaster, waiting for her judgment.

She laid her hands on his shoulders and looked him up and down. She smiled sadly, and then released him. "I hope you're hungry. I've been cooking up a storm all day." She led him into a kitchen where the smell of cooking was overwhelming. He sat at the table and she pulled out a casserole dish from the oven and began ladling it out onto plates.

Dean's stomach gurgled in response. He hadn't paid much attention to what he had been eating lately. A couple times a day, Bobby would holler that it was time for food and he would sit down at the small kitchen table and eat whatever Bobby put in front of him. Thoughts of Bobby built the anger in him and his hands fisted on the tabletop.

"You can stop that right now," she said sternly, turning on him with a ladle held in the air. "I don't want you badmouthing Bobby Singer here."

"I didn't say a word," Dean said.

"You didn't have to." She set a plate of food down in front of Dean and then took a seat opposite him. "Eat."

Dean picked up his fork and began to eat. It was more than good, it was great. The vegetables and beef were in thick gravy that would have been a full meal on its own. He found he was hungry for the first time in too long to think, and he didn't refuse second helpings.

The strangest part of the scene was that it didn't feel strange. Having arrived here on the heels of a blowout with someone who had too much to say about Dean's life and what he was doing with it, he came to a person with even less right to tell him what to do than Bobby had and yet he accepted it. Missouri wasn't demanding anything of him that he didn't feel up to doing. She had brought him here, not against his will, and now she was feeding him. It was nice to give over will to someone else for a change, especially someone that apparently knew the new cardinal rule: don't talk about Sam.

When they had finished eating, Missouri stood and gathered the dishes. She set to work at the sink, cleaning up. Dean grabbed a clean cloth and without being asked, he began to dry. Missouri nodded her approval and chattered away about inconsequential things such as the late summer heat and the herbs she was trying to cultivate in her garden. When the last dish was dried, she made them coffee and they sat down in the small lounge.

"You're staying," Missouri said.

It wasn't a question, and Dean didn't have it in him to argue. He felt wrung out like a sponge, and wanted nothing more than to close his eyes and fall asleep there and then on the plush couch. A night in Missouri's comfortable home seemed like an excellent plan.

"There's a couple of things I need help with tomorrow if you're willing. It's nothing hinky," she said, forestalling his questions. "Just some odd jobs around the place I can't get to on my own anymore."

Dean nodded. "Sure. I can help out."

She smiled at him. "Thank you, Dean."

Dean looked at her, really looked at her, the understanding yet sad smile, the concerned eyes and the tear trickling down her cheek, and he knew that he had at last found someone that understood and wouldn't push him. He would come to her for help in his own time and until then, he would help her.

* * *

He was woken early the next morning by Missouri throwing open the drapes and letting the light stream into the small room she had told him to use as his own. He threw up a hand to block the light from burning his eyes out of their sockets and groaned. "What time is it?"

"It's a little after six," she said. "And breakfast's ready."

Dean slowly moved his hand from his face, letting his eyes adjust to the light. He could smell bacon wafting up the stairs and despite the fact he had gorged himself the day before, he was suddenly ravenous.

"I'll see you downstairs," she said, bustling from the room.

Drawn on by the promise of breakfast, Dean didn't immediately notice that there was something wrong about the scene. He wasn't panting and drenched with sweat. He'd slept without nightmares. It should have pleased him, to have been given a night of rest for a change, instead it troubled him. Musing on that, he dragged on his clothes and went down to the kitchen. There was a plate of breakfast waiting for him and a glass of juice. He sat down and began to fork up his food.

Missouri sat opposite him, cradling a mug of tea in her hands. As he finished and pushed away the plate, she smiled. "I am going to ask you a question," she said, "and I don't want that temper of yours rearing its head."

"What do you want to know?"

"Are you ready to talk about him yet?"

Dean shook his head jerkily. He knew exactly who she was talking about, and the last thing he wanted to do was talk about his brother with someone who'd barely known him. Sam was his and his alone.

She nodded serenely. "In that case you won't mind helping me out with a few chores."

"Of course not," Anything was better than talking about Sam.

She smiled sweetly. "Good."

They spent the morning together on their knees, working in the flowerbeds. The closest Dean usually got to getting his hands dirty in the ground was digging up a grave, but under Missouri's guidance he plucked weeds from between the flowers and herbs and turned the earth.

Missouri kept up a stream of chatter about herself and the neighbors and the people she met at church. Dean let it wash over him as his hands worked seemingly without instruction. He found it was soothing to work on something so simple, no guns, or knives or Latin chants needed. It gave his mind a chance to rest.

In the afternoon, Missouri had clients coming and Dean was handed a can of paint and a brush and directed to the picket fence surrounding her property. The sun baked down on his back, making his neck prickle with sweat but he was as close to at peace as he had been since he'd been brought back, swiping the brush up and down the wooden posts.

When dark came, Missouri came to call him in and he enjoyed another well-made meal.

He thought about leaving, that first night, but Missouri said there were more chores to be done, and he figured the least he could do was repay her hospitality with some work.

He told himself that for a month.

The tools of his trade changed from holy water and knives to roofing cement and a caulking gun. Every morning, he came downstairs, prepared to tell Missouri that he was leaving, but every morning there was a new task to do. Even when he ran out of jobs to do around Missouri's place, her friends and neighbors had things for him to do; roofs needed fixing and drains needed unblocking. What Dean couldn't work out through trial and error, he learned from the internet, until he was as handy as anyone with their own D.I.Y show. People tried to pay him, but he refused their money, taking home-baked pies and cakes instead to Missouri's table. He worked every day, from sun up, when Missouri threw open his curtains, to sun down, when he stumbled into bed, exhausted. He felt that the work was cleansing him, exorcising some of the anger and pain from him like poison drawn from a wound. He didn't stop thinking about his brother, he didn't stop hurting from his loss, but it became easier to deal with, helped by the lack of nightmares.

Every morning, he ate breakfast with Missouri and she asked the same question. "Are you ready to talk about him?" And every morning he gave the same response. "No." Until a morning, at the beginning of October, when he staggered down the stairs with an aching back from spending the previous day under the next-door neighbor's sink trying to piece back together the trash compacter. That morning, when Missouri passed across a list of chores from yet another neighbor, he balked.

"C'mon, Missouri, it's a Sunday. Even God takes a day off on a Sunday. Give me a break, okay?"

"Are you saying you're done, Dean Winchester?" she asked, with her hands on her hips.

"No. Maybe. Yeah… I don't know." Dean sank down onto the kitchen chair and rested his elbows on the table. "I don't know, Missouri."

She smiled sadly and took a seat opposite him, and folded her hands on the table. "Are you ready to talk about him now?"

Dean's instant reaction was to tell her no, that he wasn't ready, that it hurt too bad, but something stopped him. Instead, he found himself saying, "Yeah, I think I am."

She closed her eyes for a long moment and when she opened them Dean saw a tear making its way down her cheek. "Tell me about Sam," she said gently.

Dean opened his mouth and the words poured out. All the things he had thought about over the last month but had kept inside. All the things he missed about his brother, the habits that had annoyed him at the time but would give anything to see again—like the fact Sam stirred his frou-frou coffees with the piece of crap wooden stick forever before he would drink it.

He told her how angry he was that Sam had made that deal, usurping his place as the protective big brother. Then he told her about his shame. Shame for the way he had treated Bobby, shame for his weakness of showing his heart was breaking —his dad had taught him better —and shame that he had been close to enjoying his new life, working for Missouri and her friends, when his brother was rotting in Hell.

He cried, ranted, raged, and poured every hurt feeling out for her to see. She bore it all, consoling and commiserating and comforting as best she could. And when he'd finished, tears streaking his face and breaths panting, she took him in her arms and held him against her.

"Do you feel better?" she asked.

Dean nodded. Strangely, he did. It was as if his outpouring had drawn the last of the poison from him. He was still hurting, but it was manageable now. He could bear it rather than drowning under the force of his loss.

"You know what you need to do now?" she asked.

Dean nodded and wiped at his face. "I need to get on with that list. People's sinks aren't going to fix themselves."

She waved a hand through the air. "So they can call Hank the Handyman like they always did. You've been hiding here, and I've been happy to have you, but it's time you got back to life, real life. You have a purpose in the world Dean, and it's saving people. You need to get back to that."

A purpose…" Dean sighed. "Yeah, I've heard that before."

"And that there angel was right. You have a role to play. The end is coming, Dean."

Dean started. "How do you…?"

She smiled fondly. "Boy, you haven't even begun to unravel the many mysteries that make me up. You'd been here another month just trying to work out my real name. I know about the angels, and their war against the demons, and I know it's high time you got back to that."

Dean sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. "I guess you're right. Though I don't know where to start."

"You start by going back to South Dakota, to Bobby. You owe that man an apology. He'll set you right on your path again."

Dean knew it was the truth. He had turned his phone off a month ago, and he hadn't checked it once since, but he knew Bobby well enough to know he'd be calling Dean, trying to get through to him. He didn't know how many hunts he had missed while hiding here, how many people he had failed to save, but he knew he wouldn't let it happen again.

He got to his feet and went to his bedroom to pack up his stuff. Missouri followed him up and watched as he gathered his belongings.

"There's some things you need to take with you," she said, fiddling with something behind the folds of the drapes. She held out an ugly mottled stone on a loop of cord and a sprig of some dried herb. "It's an adder stone," she said, seeing his confusion, "and this here's rosemary. They're what's been keeping away your nightmares."

"How did you know?" Dean asked.

"That you were having nightmares? The same way I knew you were in town. Your soul was crying out to me the minute you crossed the state lines. Your pain led me to you and I knew I had to do what I could to help."

Dean dropped his duffel and enveloped her in his arms. "Thanks, Missouri, for everything."

She patted his shoulder and leaned back to look him in the eye. "Thank you for letting me help. And thank you for finally letting me say this, I'm so sorry about your brother."

Dean nodded. "Yeah. Me too."

* * *

Dean knew as soon as he pulled through the wrought iron gate marking the entrance to the scrap yard that Bobby would know he was coming, but no tire iron came swinging at the hood of the Impala, so he figured Bobby couldn't be too pissed at him. That or he wasn't home. When he wound around the last of the junked cars and came to a stop at the side of the house, he realized why he wasn't being attacked for daring to show his face again. Bobby wasn't alone. There was a polished Ford Zodiac parked beside Bobby's Chevelle. Rufus was here, too.

He climbed out of the car and let the door swing shut loudly, broadcasting his arrival, and scaled the steps to the porch. He raised his fist and knocked once. The fact he was knocking on a door he'd once felt comfortable swinging open and entering without worrying settled over him, making him see just how wrong he'd gone lately.

The door unlatched and Bobby stood in the opening, a frown marring his brow. "You forget something?" he asked belligerently.

Dean drew a breath. He should have expected the attitude, he deserved it after all, but somehow in the month they'd spent apart, as he'd healed, he'd expected Bobby to remain the same, accepting and welcoming as he'd always been.

"I came to apologize," he said haltingly.

"You better come in then." Bobby stepped back and held the door open for Dean to enter.

Feeling like he was on trial, in a way he was, Dean walked into the musty scented house, with its dust motes dancing in the air and stacks of books on every available surface.

Bobby shoved past him and walked into the kitchen, and Dean followed. Rufus was sitting on the couch with a glass of whiskey in his hand and a book open on his lap. He looked up as they entered, "I'm telling you. Bobby, there's no mention of… Ah. Dean."

Dean nodded a greeting. "Hey, Rufus."

Rufus set his glass down on an end table and got to his feet. "I've got some things to do it town. I'll leave you two for a while. You… talk."

Well, that wasn't at all awkward, Dean thought, watching Rufus snatch up his coat and hurry out of the room.

The door clicked closed behind him and then the rumble of the Ford's engine could be heard as drove away.

Bobby pushed past Dean again and grabbed the glass of whiskey from the end table. He carried it over to the sink and tossed it down the drain as if he expected Dean to fall on it and gulp it down if he left it in view too long. It made him realize just how bad he'd let his behavior regarding liquor get before he'd left Bobby's place a month ago. He hadn't had a drink since then—he didn't know what had happened to the bottle of rotgut Missouri had confiscated—and he wasn't about to start now. He needed his head on straight.

"So," Bobby said, leaning against the counter and crossing his arms over his chest, "you wanted to apologize."

Dean shoved his hands deep in his pockets and hunched his shoulders. "Yeah, I did."

"You have to actually say the words for it to work."

Dean cracked a smile. "I'm sorry, Bobby. I acted like an ass, and I deserve a beating for some of the things I said."

Bobby nodded grimly. "You do deserve it, that and more."

"I'm sorry."

Bobby stared at him and Dean felt that he was assessing his sincerity and coming to his own conclusions. "Where have you been?" he asked eventually.

"Lawrence. I stayed with Missouri. She helped me get myself together."

"Well, how'd she do that? 'Cause God knows I could do with learning the trick."

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

Bobby huffed. "This more _family only_ stuff?"

Dean bowed his head, ashamed. "I should never have said you weren't family, Bobby. I didn't mean it. You are family. You've been a better father to me and Sam than our own dad, and I shouldn't have forgotten that."

"You're right, you shouldn't," Bobby said pushing away from the counter and coming towards Dean. "I understand why you said it though. I was pushing too hard. It's just… there's stuff happening and we need to be a team about it. I hate to say it, but the world is close to ending and Sam's…"

"Sam's gone?" Dean guessed. It was a mark of how much the last month had changed him that Dean didn't attack Bobby for pointing out what he knew in his heart. "He's gone and I've got to accept that."

Bobby held up his hands. "I'm not saying forget."

Dean nodded "I know. But it's the truth. Sam's gone and the world is still here, for now at least. I've got to let him be gone."

"It ain't easy." Bobby sighed heavily and his eyes became faraway for a moment. "God knows it's not that."

Dean scrubbed a hand over his face. "It sure as hell isn't. Still, it's what he'd want."

"And what about you?" Bobby asked, "What is it that you want?"

Dean considered his answer. "I want to bring Lilith down. She's the one cracking these seals, and I want to stop her."

Bobby tugged off his cap and nodded thoughtfully. "I can help with that. I'm guessing you want a place to bed down too."

Dean looked hopeful. "If that's okay."

"Your bed's where you left it," Bobby said gruffly. "Nothing's changed here. You want a place, you have it, no matter what happens."That said he turned his back on Dean and sat down behind the desk, picking up a book. He leaned his elbows on the table and massaged his temples. "There's coffee in the pot if you're thirsty."

Dean smiled to himself. It wasn't much, but this was Bobby, and grand gestures weren't his thing. The simple offer of coffee was as much of a homecoming as he was going to get, and it was plenty for him.

* * *

The parking lot of Bill's was full and he had to park between a decrepit Winnebago and an even older Plymouth. He climbed out, careful not to transfer the rust from the Winnebago onto the Impala's door, and made his way to the front entrance. He didn't particularly want to go through the main bar, but he didn't know Ellen well enough to let himself in through the back.

The sounds of music and voices swelled as he shouldered the door open and Dean prepared himself for the onslaught as he entered. Unlike the last time he had been here, the bar was now packed with patrons. Some of them Dean recognized as other hunters, and some looked like locals that were prepared to overlook the armory spread out on the tables in favor of cheap liquor and the good atmosphere.

Dean was halfway to the bar when a hand clapped down on his shoulder. "Dean Winchester, as I live and breathe."

Dean turned and was met with a familiar man. He had closely-shorn, grey hair and stubble and bleary blue eyes. "Hey there Travis. How've you been?"

"Not too bad," Travis said. "Could have used you about a month ago though. I had a hunt to take care of and a bum arm. I tried calling."

"Been kinda out of touch lately. Sorry."

"It's no matter," Travis said. "I took care of the problem in the end, all neat and tidy."

Dean made for the bar and Travis laid a hand on his shoulder, holding him back.

"I just wanted to say, I heard about Sam and I'm real sorry."

Dean gritted his teeth and nodded. He should have expected this. News had to have spread. The mention of Sam didn't bring the same piercing pain it used to; it was more a dull ache now, painful but bearable. Travis released him and he made it to the bar. Ellen's eyes widened as she caught sight of him and she left the person she was serving with a muttered apology and came to the end of the bar where Dean stood.

"Hey there, sweetie. You okay? Bobby's been ringing off the hook looking for you."

Dean leaned over the bar so she could hear him without him having to shout over the music. "I'm fine. I just came from Bobby's."

"You want to go through to the back? I've got a couple hours before closing."

Dean nodded. "That'd be good."

She smiled. "You make yourself at home."

He weaved through the crowd, nodding to acquaintances that tried to meet his eye, and made it through the door into the kitchen. The room was unchanged from how he'd last seen it except for a small vase of flowers at the centre of the table. He cast them an oblique look as he crossed the room and opened the back door to the yard.

Resting against the wooden cross of Sam's grave was a small posy of flowers, the same flowers that had been in the kitchen. Ellen or Jo must have put them there. He wondered if he should have brought something too. It was too late now, though, and he would have felt stupid doing it. He stood at the foot of the raised earth and cleared his throat, marshaling himself to do what he had come to do.

"Hey, Sammy." He sighed out a heavy breath that misted in the cool night air. "This has to be one of the all-time dumbest things I've done lately, talking to your grave. It's not like you're even here listening. You're… somewhere else, I know that, but these things have got to be said, so I'm going to bite the bullet and get them said. Sammy, I'm sorry…"

Dean stood for a long time, talking over his brother's grave. The sounds of the bar behind him were the only accompaniment to his monologue. He made apologies and confessions and accusations. He told Sam how he'd spent the last six weeks, not omitting anything; he laid bare his soul and with every word, he felt like he was growing stronger. The weeks with Missouri had exorcised the poison from the wound and this conversation was the last healing layer. When he eventually fell silent, a long time later, he finally felt strong enough to go on with the fight. He had laid the last piece of his brother, the piece he had been holding close to his heart, down to rest.

He turned to go back inside and started as he almost walked right into Castiel.

"Castiel, what are you doing here?"

"I needed to speak to you," Castiel said solemnly.

"And you knew where I was how?"

"I am an angel. Sensing a single human's location is easy for us." He looked down at Sam's grave with a thoughtful expression. "I heard you talking to your brother."

Dean shifted uncomfortably. "I don't know why you bothered listening. It was a dumb thing to do. I don't even know why I did it."

"Do not cheapen what has just passed," Castiel said. "You have laid your brother to rest. That is significant." He looked into Dean's eyes. "Missouri Mosely has been a good friend to you."

"How do you know about her? Have you been following me?" Dean asked indignantly.

Castiel shook his head serenely. "Save your anger for things that matter. I have not been following you. I heard Missouri's prayers."

"So you guys hear prayers?" Dean wasn't sure how he felt about that. Prayers were supposed to go to God. The thought that a bunch of dick angels had been listening when Sam had made his daily prayer bothered him.

"We only hear prayers directed to us individually. Missouri prayed to me because she knew the part I have been given in your personal story. She despaired sometimes, worried you would never heal. You have now, so I can share my news. Fifteen seals have been broken."

Dean took a step back. "You're kidding. Why didn't you come get me? I could have stopped them."

"Do not overestimate yourself," Castiel said. "You could not have stopped them. My brethren died trying to stop it. And besides, you weren't ready to be of assistance to us. You needed to lay your grief to rest before you could have been any use."

"And now I'm 'healed' I am useful again?" He didn't like the word. It made it sound like he had forgotten about Sam. He hadn't. Sam was still in his thoughts and he still missed him with a pain that was almost physical, but it didn't overwhelm him now. He could think around it and try to do what Sam would have wanted.

"That is the essence of it, yes."

"So what are you doing here now?" Dean asked. "Is there another seal breaking?"

"Undoubtedly," Castiel said. "But I do now know which it is. There are over six hundred possible seals, and we do not know which Lilith will target next. I merely came here tonight to remind you of your purpose and to ensure you are battle ready."

Dean raised his arms at his sides. "This is me, battle ready. I'm a loaded gun, just point me."

Castiel nodded. "When the time comes, I will."

With that, he disappeared with a faint fluttering sound. Cursing quietly, Dean went back into the kitchen and sat down at the table.

* * *

**How many of you were pissed at Dean for what he said to Bobby at the start of this chapter? *raises hand* Me too. I tried to write an amicable parting before sending Dean off to Missouri, but he wasn't having any of it. Sometimes characters tell their own story and this was one of those times.**

**I got an anon review that I was sad I couldn't reply to. Guest, you know who you are, I am sorry about the tears and your poor heart, and I really appreciated your review. **

**To everyone that left signed reviews, I think I replied to you all personally, but if I missed you I just want you to know how much I appreciate your support for the story. I am so happy every time I get a message telling me that one of you has left me some feedback. If you have constructive criticism, don't be shy. Please share it with me so I can use it to improve the next chapter/story.**

**Sequel news: It is coming along marvelously. I am on chapter twelve now, and I can't wait for you all to read it. I know some of you are anxiously awaiting it. **

**That's enough of my rambling for now… **

**Clowns or Midgets xxx **


	10. Chapter 10

**Thanks to SandraEngstrom1 for the marvelous beta job she did on this chapter. **

**This chapter is — I hope — one of the better ones as I don't follow a canon episode and instead send Dean off on a hunt that MaryAliceBrandonCullen came up with. Let me know what you think.**

* * *

**Chapter Ten**

Gradually, the noise in the bar died down as people left for the night. Engines started and cars pulled out of the parking lot, leaving clouds of dust in their wake.

Ellen came through to the kitchen and raked a hand over her face, sighing tiredly. Dean stood to greet her and she hugged him tightly.

"How've you been, sweetie?" she asked, pulling back to look him in the eye.

Dean shrugged his shoulders. "I'm fine." When she looked at him doubtfully, he continued. "I really am, Ellen. Things have been tough, but I'm okay now."

Her grip on his shoulders tightened. "The last time someone said that to me he'd just made the deal that saved your life. Please tell me you haven't…"

Dean shook his head. "No deals. I haven't even tried since that first night back." He raked a hand through his hair. "I don't know how to explain it, Ellen, I'm not even sure I want to. Things are just different now."

She nodded thoughtfully. "I guess that's good. As long as you're okay."

"I'm not skipping around, seeing the infinite joy in the world, but I'm dealing."

She smiled. "That's better than nothing, I guess. It's what he would want, which is what matters. Have you been out to see him?"

"Yeah. I saw the flowers."

"That's Jo. She goes out there and sees him almost every day that she's here. She tells him about her hunts and the people she meets. I think it helps her, you know?"

"How's she doing?" Dean asked.

"She's dealing too," Ellen said with a small smile. "Her and Sam got close the weeks he was here with us, and I think she's missing him more than she's letting on. You sticking around? She'll be back soon and she'd love to see you again. She's been worried. We both have."

"Yeah, I've got time, and I'd like to see her, too."

They fell into a comfortable silence that was broken only by the cicadas singing outside the window. Then there was a rumble of an approaching engine, and Ellen got to her feet and put water on to boil.

"That's Jo," she said taking a mug from the counter and dropping in a teabag. "I recognize the sputter of that crapped out engine anywhere."

Dean smiled at the fondness in her voice. He guessed it wasn't easy for Ellen, having Jo out living the hunter's life. He knew it was a dangerous world and it left your loved ones living with a constant ache of worry. He was lucky in that his family had all lived the hunting life—for the most part—so they had been too busy working to worry too much. He wondered if Sam had worried about him and their dad when he'd been at Stanford, and then he shook away the thought. There was no way of knowing and dwelling on the things he'd never asked would get him nowhere.

The back door clicked open and Jo came in. Dean looked up at her and smiled.

"Jo, what's wrong?" Ellen asked, concern heavy in her tone.

Dean took a closer look at Jo and saw what was making Ellen worry. Jo's smile was forced and taut and saw there were deep creases on her forehead.

"I saw a dog," she said.

"A dog like Fido the Pekinese or…" Dean asked.

"A black dog. Outside by Sam's grave."

Dean jumped to his feet and threw open the back door. There was nothing out there. The night was still; even the cicadas had fallen silent.

It could have been a stray, perfectly innocent, but Jo wasn't the sort of person that jumped at shadows, and she looked genuinely scared now.

He turned and gripped her shoulders. "What did it look like?"

"It was big." Tears sprang to her eyes. "And its eyes were kinda red."

"Help me out here, Jo. Red bloodshot or red demonic."

She blinked and a tear ran down her cheek. "I think… I think it was a Hellhound."

Dean released her and his hands tangled in his hair. Hellhounds here. Hellhounds were blood and pain and death. They couldn't be here, they just couldn't because that would mean…

"Jo, what did you do?" Ellen asked in a breathy voice. "You made a deal."

"I did not," Jo said shrilly. "I haven't been near a crossroads."

"Swear it," Ellen demanded. "Swear on your father's name."

"I swear it," Jo said. "I swear on dad's name that I haven't been near a crossroads."

Dean believed her, but that added a new level of worry. Hellhounds were invisible unless your deal was approaching and they were coming for you. Jo hadn't seen a Hellhound, which meant she had seen something worse.

"Are you sure you saw it?" Ellen asked. "It couldn't have just been a stray?"

Jo shook her head. "I didn't imagine it, Mom. It had glowing red eyes."

Dean snatched up his jacket from the back of the chair and pulled it on.

"Where are you going?" Ellen asked and Dean knew what she was thinking. She thought Dean was going to crap on their friendship and make a run for it, even after everything they had done for him and Sam.

"We're all going," Dean said. "We've got to get somewhere safe. Grab what you need for a few days and do it fast. We haven't got much time."

"What are you thinking, Dean?" Jo asked. "What did I see?"

"I think you saw a Black Dog," Dean said. "A supernatural Black Dog."

Ellen whimpered and grabbed Jo's hand.

"What's a Black Dog?" Jo asked in a querulous voice.

Dean looked her in the eye and saw the open fear there. He felt sick at what he had to tell her. "It's an omen of death."

* * *

Dean called ahead to warn him they were coming, so Bobby was waiting at the door for them. When he caught sight of Jo's tear streaked face, he opened his arms and she fell into his waiting embrace.

"It's okay," he said gently. "We'll take care of it."

"You better," Ellen said. Whereas Jo was wearing her fear like a cloak for all to see, Ellen's seemed to be beyond words. She was terrified for her daughter, but she was hiding it behind a mask of strength.

Bobby released Jo and led them into the library. Jo sat down on the couch and Ellen sat beside her with an arm around her shoulder. Bobby picked up a book from the desk and brought it over to show Jo. "Is that what you saw?"

Jo glanced over the page and shuddered. "I think so. The eyes are right."

"Tell me you've got good news, Bobby," Dean said.

Bobby shook his head solemnly. "Nothing good. I've been reading up on Black Dogs, and it's not good. One thing is it might not mean Jo's death."

Ellen looked up sharply. "Then who's is it?"

"Maybe yours," Bobby said. "The lore says a Black Dog is a portend of a death in a family. It could be the person that saw the dog or someone they love."

Fresh tears ran down Jo's cheeks. "Mom?"

"I'm fine, sweetie," Ellen said. "We're going to be fine. I'll take care of this."

"We will," Dean said firmly. He wasn't going to lose anyone else, not now. He would find this dog and he would take care of it.

"And by we he means me and him," Bobby said.

"I can fight," Jo said, bristling with indignation. "I've been hunting two years now. I'm not a kid."

"No one said you were," Bobby said patiently. "But with the dog targeting you and your mom, you can't be in this. You and your mom are going somewhere safe." "I thought we had," Ellen said. "This place is the best protected from fuglys that I have ever seen."

"You ain't seen nothing yet," Dean said with a grim smile. "Come with me."

Ellen and Jo got to their feet and followed Dean out of the study and into the hall. Dean opened the door leading to the basement and went down the steps with them hot on his heels. He unbolted the heavy iron door and went into the panic room. Ellen turned on the spot, taking in the room with its arsenal of weapons and solid iron walls.

"It's a panic room," Dean said. "Bobby made it himself. If anywhere is safe for you, it's this place."

Jo crossed the room and perched on the edge of the cot. She wrapped her arms around herself. "How long will we have to stay here?"

"As long as it takes," Ellen said firmly. "This is no time to be pandering to our fears."

Dean frowned. He didn't think Jo was claustrophobic. He remembered how she had handled the confined spaces when they had been hunting H.H. Holmes.

"It's not me," Jo said, seeing his confusion. "It's mom."

Ellen scoffed. "You think I'm going to get all phobic now? Jo, your life's on the line. I could be trapped in a coffin and I'd be fine."

Dean didn't think much of that. Having recently woken up in his own grave, he knew it wasn't exactly a party.

"You girls stay here," Bobby said. "Me and Dean will get to researching."

Ellen sat down beside her daughter and nodded. "Work fast."

"You know it," Dean said and then followed Bobby back out into the basement.

When he had bolted the door, shutting Jo and Ellen in, Bobby turned to Dean. "We've got no choice about working fast. Lore says Black Dogs are portends of death."

"We know this Bobby."

"Yeah, smartass, do you also know the death will occur within three days."

Dean cursed. That wasn't nearly enough time.

* * *

Rufus had gone home, and though Bobby called him and told him what had happened, he was halfway back to Vermont, twelve hours away, so Dean and Bobby were left to research alone. They worked in silence, only speaking to exchange facts.

They had been at it for an hour when Dean threw his book down onto the table and sighed. Research wasn't his forte, that had been Sam, and he was quickly disheartened by the lack of useful information.

"There's nothing in here about how to kill them," he said.

Bobby snapped his book shut. "No, nor in here. Maybe they can't be killed."

Dean rubbed at his tired eyes. "Then what are we supposed to do? We can't keep them in the panic room forever."

"If that's even helping. It barred against fuglys but there are a hundred natural ways of dying. Who's to say Ellen won't drop dead of a heart attack?"

"Then should we move them?"

"Where to, a hospital? What are we supposed to tell the doctors? My friend saw a death omen, so we need a crash cart standing by?"

"Don't say that." Dean groaned. He didn't want to think about it. He could defend Ellen and Jo from something he could fight, but he had no defense against natural, human deaths.

"I'm sorry, Dean, but I can't not say it. We might well have to…"

"To what?" Dean asked. "Chalk this one up to fate and watch Ellen or Jo die? I can't do that, not after everything we've lost already."

Bobby rested his head in his hands. "If we just knew what weapon to use."

"Weapon!" Dean jumped to his feet and went to where he had stowed his jacket. He pulled Ruby's knife out of the inner pocket. "We've got a weapon. This thing kills demons, right? Why can't it kill a demonic dog?"

"Because a Black Dog isn't demonic," Bobby said. "According to everything I've read, a Black Dog is part of the natural order of things. It is not evil; it's just doing its job."

Dean shook his head and tugged on his jacket. "Natural or not, I'm ganking this thing."

"And how are you going to find it?"

"I'll go back to Bill's. The thing is probably still hanging around."

"That's one hell of a long shot," Bobby said.

"I've got to try, Bobby. You keep hitting the books, and I'll go find me a pup."

Bobby looked like he wanted to argue some more, but he stayed quiet, possibly seeing the determination in Dean's eyes. "You be careful."

Dean tossed the knife from hand to hand. "I always am." He flashed Bobby a grim smile and went out to the car, feeling better now he had something resembling a plan.

* * *

The speed Dean was driving at cut down the journey to Bill's by an hour. He was soon pulling up in the parking lot and cutting the engine. Throughout the ride, he considered his plan, and the more he thought about it, the more sense it made. If he could just kill the dog, Ellen and Jo would be fine.

He climbed out of the car and made his way round the back of the bar. It was eerie, with the bar in darkness and the full moon, and he felt like he was being watched. Hoping it was a certain dog that was watching, Dean pulled the knife out of his pocket and crept forward.

"Here doggy, doggy," he said loudly. "Come get your treat."

Nothing moved in the night except the grass in the light breeze.

Dean raked a hand through is hair and wondered what to do next. He could return to Bobby's, a failure, or he could keep at it, trying to track the… And then he heard it, a low growl from behind the shed.

He gripped the hilt of the knife a little tighter and made his way forward slowly. He was almost there when something barreled around the corner and launched itself at him. He was knocked back to the ground and his breath huffed out of him. He looked up at his attacker and his heart contracted painfully. It was a huge dog, with slobbering jowls and glowing red eyes. It looked so much like a hellhound. His mind spun back through the months to the last time, when red eyes had looked at him with hunger, as his chest had been torn to ribbons and the life had left him. He was going to die, he knew it. Then reason caught up with him. Last time he had been defenseless, this time he had a weapon. He drew Ruby's knife up and shoved it up into the dog's neck, drawing it down to its haunches, but there was something wrong. The knife moved through the air without resistance. As if the dog wasn't there. He tried again, jabbing the knife into the dog's neck. He saw immediately what was wrong. The dog wasn't truly there. The knife cut through the dog's throat but rather than drawing blood, it moved through smoke. The dog was like a vengeful spirit, able to affect but not be affected. Dean cursed the fact he'd come armed only with the knife. He needed a shotgun full of salt rounds.

Suddenly, the dog whined and drew back, climbing from him. Dean scrambled to his feet and looked at the dog. It was bowed against the ground now, whining as if it was being whipped.

Dean stared down at it, wondering what the hell was happening, then a voice whispered to him, "Run!" He remained frozen in place, heart pounding in his ears, as he waited for the voice to come again. He _needed_ to hear it again. "Damnit, Dean, run!"

He obeyed without thought, leaving the dog whimpering on the ground, he ran for the car and yanked open the door. He threw himself in behind the wheel and gunned the engine before he had even closed the door behind him.

He was halfway to Lincoln, and his heart still hadn't stopped pounding, when his phone rang.

He snatched it up. "Sam?"

"What?" Bobby's voice was a mere whisper. "Dean, it's me."

"Bobby?"

"Yeah. Look, you've gotta get back here. I've found something."

"I'm already on my way," Dean said.

"Hurry."

Dean tossed the phone down on the seat and coaxed a little more speed out of the engine.

* * *

Bobby was pacing the library when Dean got back around dawn. There was a stack of books open on the desk and Bobby had one clutched in his hand. He looked up as Dean came in and breathed a sigh of relief.

"What took you so long?" he asked.

"Driving," Dean said simply. "What did you find?"

"Come downstairs. Ellen and Jo need to hear this, too."

Jo was curled up on the cot and Ellen was sitting on the floor with a hand resting on Jo's arm. As the door creaked closed, Jo sat up and rubbed her bloodshot eyes.

"Tell me you found something good," Ellen said getting to her feet.

Bobby scrubbed a hand through his beard. "I found something, but I don't know whether or not it's good." He opened the book and read aloud. "Black Dogs, the servants of Reapers, bless a forewarning on those bound for death if they are deserving."

"Bless?" Jo said incredulously. "I don't call this a blessing."

"Never mind that," Ellen said. "What's that about Reapers?"

"The dogs, they're like… assistants to Reapers," Bobby said. "From what I've read, they come to people in the know and give them warning of death. It's like a blessing to them, gives you a chance to get your affairs in order."

Dean scoffed. "Well, that's not happening here. No one's getting reaped." Jo gave him a sad smile and Dean recognized it. He had worn the same smile for the year he knew he was living on borrowed time. He hated to see it on Jo's face. It was if she had already given up. "I mean it. We just need to find the Reaper and gank it."

"I don't think it's gonna be that easy," Bobby said. "You can't fight something you can't see, and the only people that can see Reapers are those that are dying."

"Will I be able to see it?" Jo asked.

Bobby shook his head. "You've got to be on the verge. That or a ghost."

Dean grinned as an idea occurred to him. "Well, if ghosts are the only ones that can see them..."

Bobby crossed his arms over his chest. "Yeah?"

"Then I become a ghost."

There was an explosion of noise in the wake of Dean's words. He allowed them to get it out for a minute and then he raised his hands. Ellen and Jo fell silent, but Bobby had a head of steam building and he was going to make himself heard.

"I know you've been through a lot, Dean, but we've been through this. You can't—"

"I'm not pissing all over Sam's grave or whatever else you're going to say. I'm not _dying_ dying. I'm talking about altering perception a little. Astral projecting."

Bobby scoffed. "And I forgot that you're a Zen master. How are you planning reaching the astral plane? That sort of mojo takes decades of practice."

"I'm going to get a little help," Dean said calmly. "I know someone."

* * *

**There is something in this chapter that I think some of you might take issue with. I am curious to see if any of you do. **

**Thanks as always to all of you that read, reviewed, fave'd and added this story to your alert. I appreciate your help more than I can say and I wish I could hug each and every one of you for the happiness you give me. The sequel had hit a bit of a wall at the moment so your support means more than ever. Knowing people are waiting for it has me working hard when I want to quit. **


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